Kitchen Sink Dramas
by ama.blue
Summary: A series of B/B one-shots.
1. Sunday Afternoon

**Sunday Afternoon**

_**A/N:**_ _This will be a collection of Bones one-shots and drabbles. Even though it is titled Kitchen Sink Dramas, not all of them will be particularly dramatic and none will be literal 'Kitchen Sink Dramas'. I mean it in more of an 'everything but the kitchen sink' sort of way, as there will be a whole bunch of genres and characters I will probably end up writing in and about. _

_Anyway, this one-shot is a season finale speculation!fic. Brennan & Booth in a bedroom after all of Booth's hallucination drama. Ready, set, go! _

************

Booth's bed takes up nearly half the room, so there's no doubt whatsoever that what he does is sleep here. Brennan's propped against his door, hand still on the handle, and silent as he splashes water on his face.

There's the question of if she should go, then whether to sit or stand; she settles for sitting at the foot of his bed, half-watching his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he shaves and half-pretending she finds the backs of her hands a more interesting sight. He smiles at his reflection, or maybe at her. She isn't sure.

She has never actually been in his bedroom before; it's practical, not stuffy, but warm. It's nearly summer outside, and she thinks air conditioning would not make them feel this quite so much.

Booth throws his face towel onto the counter, his biceps contracting and tightening under his shirt with the movement. He's still smiling as he walks over to her. A few years ago she wouldn't have been at Booth's apartment, in his bedroom at all, and she wouldn't have felt so strangely sorry for things she can't control: his health, her questions, his family. Despite all of Booth's promises, this smacks strongly of change. Theoretically, it is something she wants. She wants to feel that stagnancy, and suspension, and _just partners_ is really as flat-out unsustainable as everyone says. But it's not. It's really, really, really…not.

Her hand comes up to touch his cheek, and he smells clean, not like a hospital or that pudding that kept ending up right there on his chin. She feels sentimental and dizzy; there was that time he was in the hospital, when he botched an interrogation and ended up in intensive care. But that time was days ago. Not now.

"You're not gonna turn out to be a hallucination are you?" he asks, joining her on the bed.

"No." Her hand drops from his face, away from the strong, symmetrical features that could be her child's. "No. Of course not. Does this not seem real?"

He rubs at his forehead and chuckles. "I don't know. No cartoon characters yet."

Her nails dig into his comforter a little at that, and she wants so badly for him to stop joking about this. For once. "I don't find that amusing."

"Of course," he says wryly, frowning right back at her. "Listen, I'm sick, not dying, Bones. Not even sick, not even…didn't you see the medication the doctor gave me? I'm fine."

"I'm sure that the doctor told you he was _nearly_ certain his diagnosis was correct."

"What, you think he was wrong?"

"I don't know if he was wrong or not. I'm not a medical doctor."

He swivels to face her completely now, the blanket underneath him twisting with the sudden movement. "You know, Bones, just a moment ago, the whole hallucination thing? I was joking. I was only joking, got it?"

She doesn't turn to look at him, but she can see him in the corner of her eye, almost feel him—irritated and staring.

"Yes, I knew that," she says simply.

She shifts on his bed; their shadows on the wall are still and her face feels hot because Booth needs to get air conditioning, and he needs to not get upset when she's honest, and he needs to be resting, not whispering in her face.

"I can't be sure that your sperm is viable anymore," she finds herself saying quietly to the wall, not to him. The message comes across all the same, but for just a moment it remains quiet, still, just like before. Then he stands up and gives her this look, this look that makes her bite her lip, hard, because he's looking at her like he would hate her if he could. He walks toward the door and she stands, turning him around and holding onto his shoulder.

"If the doctors can be certain that whatever's wrong with you isn't autosomal dominant then I'd still want to use your sperm, whatever the risk of…what, Booth?"

"Either be quiet about this or leave," he murmurs in her face, pushing her hand away.

Brennan blinks, confused for a moment; he had been so open to this discussion a week ago.

Her neurons seem to short circuit and trip over themselves as her feet make a straight line toward the door, and she can't manage to think what she's feeling or comprehend just what she's doing. Mostly, she doesn't know what else to do, what else to say, so her fingers slip around the knob, turning until the door gets slammed shut again before it's even opened, shaking on its hinges under Booth's hand.

She can feel him against her back. He still smells like shaving cream, and she gets a strong whiff as she turns to face him, reddening a little when she remembers how just a moment ago she reached out to touch his face.

"You were really going to leave?" he asks before she can get a word out, his features screwed in concentration as he watches her, hand still pushed against the wood behind her head. He sighs and she merely blinks at the warm puff of air in her face. "Nevermind. Of course you were."

"You were clearly angry with me. You _are_ clearly angry with me."

Booth says nothing, his hand flexing behind her as she starts to speak again, quickly, and logically, and with all of the big words she knows make him frustrated, that she knows will make her feel in control again. "Booth, we're beyond that juncture in history when male fitness is determined solely by the number of progeny a…"

Booth closes the few inches between the two of them, bracing himself against the door as he blatantly drops his eyes to her moving mouth and muffles her next word, leaning down and pressing his lips firmly to hers. _Mmpph_ is all that emerges from the back of her throat, and her eyes open wide then close again as he kisses her, his lips warm and insistent against her own—insistent, then demanding, then back again, because when is it ever just simple and unchanging with Booth? This isn't…this isn't good, but it is and she's standing stock still; if she were kissing him back, if she were smart enough or stupid enough or hungry enough to tug at his collar like last time…

But this isn't a Christmas dare so she pushes him gently away, wiping at her mouth. "…beyond that juncture in history when male fitness, male and female fitness actually, was determined by the number of…the number of progeny resulting and—"

"God, just be quiet," he mutters, running a shaky hand through his hair.

She presses her lips together then opens them again, raising a brow. "Why did you do that?"

"I did that because I wanted to. I'm sure you know what that's like, Bones, doing whatever the hell _you_ want without caring about the consequences."

His voice is mocking and it makes her avert her eyes to the ground—his words seem applicable to so many things she has done, so many things she has done wrong, that she finds herself at a loss for a retort. She shifts, raising her eyes to meet his.

"Do you think I'm selfish?"

The words hang there and she's almost sure she sees his mouth fall open as though he's about to answer. But no, he is silent, just like her—though she's the only one who can feel tears pricking at the sides of her eyes. Booth had been dying in front of her every day for months and she hadn't even noticed; she'd been blithe, so unaware and constantly, constantly pressuring him into giving her what she wanted: a child to pass on _her_ heritable, oh-so-important intelligence. She had thought that was all that mattered.

She wants Booth to answer her question, and she wants him to be angry or upset or to kiss her again if that's what he wants. A part of her wants that to be what he wants.

Brennan swallows and walks up to him. He's quiet still, staring her in the eye as she reaches for his face, pressing her fingers to his cheek and then her lips to his. She kisses him, slowly, though she's never been good at slow, never felt a need for it. She does listen when he talks, despite what he may think, so she knows by now that this is what he likes. Booth doesn't hesitate in kissing her back, though he's slow as well, too slow and teasing with his tongue against her lips, and his fingers spreading out in her hair. She feels him groan into her mouth and she pushes against the length of his body, wanting more of him than she's ever let herself want before.

His request for her to _stop_ comes as unexpected and is ultimately ignored. She pauses then leans in again anyway because _he's_ the one who wanted this. The evidence is right there in his pants that he wants this.

"I don't think you're selfish, okay," he says, pushing her away, his breathing heavy but his words intelligible enough to come as a relief. "Sometimes you forget you have to do more than just think, and you come across as less caring than you are. That's all. So let's just forget about all of this, alright?"

"I don't know what you mean by _this._"

"Yeah, you do."

And she does. There's something new, fulfilling almost, in being able to participate in conversation this cryptic. She knows she wants his lips on hers again and that he wants the same, but this must be where his line comes in. "That's not what you want—to forget about all of this."

"Sometimes it doesn't matter what I want," he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Sometimes it should." She pauses, smiling a little to herself. "That night in the hospital, you asked me a question about how long ago visiting hours had ended. I'm thinking we almost kissed afterwards. We were about to. I _think_ that I am correct in thinking that." She flattens her back against the door again, at a loss for what to say to someone who won't say anything back. "I wanted you not to die. Sometimes we each should get exactly what we want."

Her own words make no logical sense to her, there's no reason or coherency there and she's sure there's no overarching fairness in the world, but she wants things to be even between them again. _Even_—she likes the sound of that and kisses the corner of his mouth.

Her hands grope for the belt of his jeans, unbuckling until he grabs her wrists. "Dammit, that's enough." He squeezes just a little and she yanks her hands away immediately. "I don't want your pity," he says lowly, angrily in her face.

"When you're upset like this, your heart rate increases, adrenaline surges through your body, and your blood flows to your hands. I know that this could all be redirected in a way that would be more satisfying for the both of us," she murmurs, her words hitting right against his neck, close to his ear but just far enough away that Booth leans forward, almost on instinct.

"I hate to be the voice of rationality here…"

"Then don't." She pulls back, wetting her bottom lip. "Why isn't this rational?"

He looks away, shaking his head; there's no argument, he has none. When he looks at her again his eyes are dark, hot, and there's not a moments hesitation when he invades her space again, insinuating himself against her, his hand pressed to the wood behind her waist, his leg working itself deftly between hers. She pushes her hips against his, and when his hands move to still her, "You know, I— " is all he manages to get out.

She's not sure what he was about to say, not sure that she cares; she finds herself interested in only his lips on hers. Insistent, demanding—so much more than before; that's what she wants. Selfish, maybe, she thinks as kisses him hard; still, it's clearly what he wants too. His tongue runs along her lips and he grabs her wrists, again, when she reaches for the buckle on his pants, pushing her back against the door.

"Slow down," he whispers on a short breath, pulling away as his thumbs run across the pulse points at her wrists, almost making her shiver, almost making her glad he's holding her there. But there's something unsettling about that suggestion, and she pushes her lips against his again, this time opening her mouth to him, then pulling his bottom lip between her teeth because she could really wrench her hands away from his grasp so, so easily, but she doesn't, she isn't even trying, and she needs someone to take that fact out on.

He moans, letting go of her hands and pressing himself flush against her. He's the one escalating this now. Her hands slip under his shirt, alternately working to pull it off and letting it bunch over her fists. Everything is hot; his skin, his room, his hands, his mouth.

His fingers work slowly then quickly, at intervals just like that; unbuttoning her shirt, then twisting into her hair, then running from her breasts to her hips. He rips one of the buttons off of her top and she knows it's an accident because he pauses a second—just enough to provoke a response from her.

"Yes, just like that. It makes me wonder what you would do if you weren't…" she breathes, a small moan escaping as his lips make their way to her neck, "…if you weren't…ah…such a prude when it comes to sex."

She laughs a little and she thinks that's what sets him off. He lays a long, punishing kiss to the side of her neck, sucking at her skin until she's sure he's left a mark. She doesn't stop him, she doesn't want to stop the way his mouth is moving down her chest, pulling at any piece of clothing, yanking at any piece of jewelry that obstructs his angle on her body. But she wants his shirt off, and if there were any buttons she'd want all of those gone as well.

She pulls at the hem of his shirt, and they both stumble a little until she's back against the door, tugging his shirt over his head, quickly, until the top of his body is bare against hers. And maybe it's worth noting that even though she's seen him without a shirt a number of times before there was never a way of knowing that his body would feel like this, _like this_, against hers. She kisses down his chest, his hands snaking into her hair as she moves smoothly down to his abdomen. "I want…" he lets out on a strangled sort of sigh, his hands fisting bunches of her hair.

Before she can go further, his palms clasp her shoulders, urging her to stand up.

"Booth, I-"

He halts her words with his thumb to her lips, his other hand grabbing for one of hers. She nearly flinches when he presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Somewhere, somehow, maybe a long time ago, everything's become clouded and confused and not _even_—she's not sure who's leading who.

He pulls away, still breathing hard as he stares at her. "I want you to look at me. That's what I want. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

*****

The first thing she says, the first full sentence she manages to form after she comes is: "The thread count of your sheets is very high. I can tell."

He gives her a lazy smile, brushing a piece of hair away from where it's stuck to her mouth. "Thanks for the compliment."

"See, I do compliment you sometimes."

"You complimented my sheets."

She turns her eyes up toward the ceiling, a slow smirk working its way across her face. "My orgasm was very powerful. You have more energy and stamina than anyone I've—"

He laughs, then: "Okay, that's enough."

She turns onto her elbow to face him, her eyes falling on the pieces of clothing at his door. There's the door and there's Booth, brushing her too-red cheeks, which have been this way since she came in here. He's tentative with every movement, as though at any moment she'll walk away. All of this is tentative.

"Really, though. That was…" she trails off as his finger flattens itself to the still-light mark on her neck. He frowns a little at the broken capillaries there, and looks up at her.

"That was…" he presses, waiting for her finish.

She shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, what is there to say? _That was something I'd like to do every time we're frustrated with one another? _Somehow she's sure that won't cut it with Booth.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I hope that I was effective in conveying that."

"You're sorry."

"For spending nearly every day with you and not recognizing you were sick. For putting so much pressure on you when it came to my wanting a baby, yes."

"So this?"

She doesn't know. Maybe he had it right before when he said this wasn't rational. There was no real impetus, no action for her reaction—was it his hand on the door, his kiss…but he's kissed her before, his implication that she didn't care? For the first time she just doesn't know.

"It was what _you_ wanted, right?"

He gives her a good long look.

"Booth?"

"God," he says, kicking his legs off to the side of the bed and pushing the heels of his hands to his forehead. He gives a bitter sort of laugh, turning back to look at her. "This_, this_, Bones, is exactly what I didn't want."


	2. Pennies

**Pennies**

_Do you guys think I would be mean enough to give you two back-to-back angsty one-shots? Do you? Ahh...well, you will have to see. _

_This one take place sometime after Judas on a Pole (2x11) at a much earlier point in the development of Booth and Brennan's relationship.  
_

_*******************_

Just after dusk, the sky no longer a cloudy purple, they make their way out of the diner. Remnants of the afternoon's downpour linger; an abandoned umbrella blown inside out, tree branches shaded darker than normal, and puddles—mostly puddles. He relishes the slow sink of his feet into a small few. His partner avoids them with ease.

Under the soft buzz of streetlights Brennan looks tired and blurred at the edges, as if parts of her have been rubbed out against the sky. Booth focuses his gaze, in need of affirmation of her being more real than hazy outline. He brushes his arm lightly against hers to feel.

Yes, very real.

Halting, he rolls his eyes at himself, feeling twelve again—wading through puddles and reveling in the slightest touch of a girl.

As if from far off there's a low murmur—soft, hurried words reaching him on a rush of air as she walks ahead, for a moment unmindful of the fact that he's stopped. _Tool marks_ and _Paleo-something bones_ and _cannibalism _and _evidence_. Evidence of—

"What?" She turns back toward where he's standing.

He blinks at her. "What?"

"It's what I do when we haven't got a case. Even archaic humans need a cause of death," she says, her mouth settling into a frown.

"I know." He smiles, quickly attempting to piece together what she had been talking about. _Dead old guy. Cannibals._ He takes a step toward her. "Don't think you'll figure out who ate him though, Bones. At least, not without me."

"Actually, it was most likely _her_ family and other members of her hunter-gatherer group, after she died."

"Right," he says slowly.

A few leftover drops of rainwater drip down from a shop's awning and into her hair. They roll then disappear as she tilts her head, confusion playing across her face. "It is right. Despite the fact that some anthropologists argue that can—"

"Hey, Bones," he interrupts, moving the few steps to where she is standing.

"Yeah?"

"Maybe you should take it easy this weekend, you know, after everything that happened with your dad."

"I don't understand what you're suggesting." Her eyes snap up to meet his.

"You know, leave the ancient bones till Monday. Take some time to yourself," he offers, holding her gaze.

"You mean wallow?"

"I wouldn't put it like that."

"I spent a lot of time waiting, wondering what happened to my parents, what happened to my dad. And ultimately that was time wasted. Nothing is accomplished," she counters. Her voice is cool, detached, but he knows the words come more from anger and pain than the rational front she puts up. He saw the anguish on her face as she watched her father drive away again. Saw her bottom lip quiver before she bit it, swallowing the lump rising in her throat alongside the _thank you_ as he uncuffed her from that bench. Maybe two years ago he might have marveled at her seemingly clean breaks from things that should bother her. But he knows better now. Knows her better. She's anything but detached.

"You can't honestly believe that, Bones."

She stares, challenging him to argue his point, but he can find nothing else to offer in the way of words. She breathes in deeply, turning back in the direction they had originally been walking.

He grabs for her forearm, halting her. "Don't expect me to drop you back off at the lab."

Brennan's quiet for a moment, breathing in his face until she gives a hollow laugh, looking pointedly at the hand twined around her arm. "I have my own car, Booth."

She pulls away indignantly and crosses her arms. "I typically wouldn't find it necessary to work later than usual, but since you decided to prolong dinner into a two hour affair…" she trails off, her breasts rising into his line of sight and falling against her arms with each shallow, annoyed breath she takes. He shifts his eyes to the wet sidewalk behind her. He wasn't sure she could drive him anymore crazy. Clearly he was wrong.

He can almost feel her looking expectantly at him, waiting for a retort that's equally mean, but the last thing he wants to do tonight is argue with her. In most ways he feels they're beyond that. Beyond him finding it necessary to push her against the wall of a shooting range in an attempt to make her see reason. Especially when they both know all she'll do is push back.

They're adults, partners. Friends even. They know how to talk, know how to get along well—incredibly well—without pushing so much. So he doesn't push her, simply starts walking toward the car.

Grumbling, he fishes for keys amongst the lose change in his pocket. A few coins tumble out in the process and roll in all directions along the pavement. A penny comes to a stop at her feet and he turns around when he no longer hears her walking beside him. With a laugh, he stares at the sight before him: Bones, stock still, and watching the coin tremble then fall before her.

"Find a penny. Pick it up. All day long you'll have…" He lights up, looking expectantly at her to finish his sentence.

"A penny," she deadpans.

He rolls his eyes. "Don't tell me you've never heard that phrase before."

"I have, but I don't believe in luck."

"Says the woman who bet a thousand bucks on me in Vegas."

She smiles a little when Booth bends down to pick up the penny. "That was a fluke and a part of the case."

He flips the small coin a few times then holds it between their faces. "Well, think of this penny as a fluke, Bones."

"No matter what I _think_, Booth, it doesn't change the fact that it has no magical properties whatsoever," she says matter-of-factly, eyeing the penny suspiciously.

He leans in closer to her, amused, and begins speaking in a low whisper. "Bones, I want you to close your eyes and think back to when you were a little kid, before you spent Friday nights studying dead people. I bet _that_ Temperance at least wanted to believe that a penny was more than just a penny."

Brennan stares at him a moment, purposely not letting her eyelids shift downward, even to blink. "Don't trivialize my job," she says seriously, sounding almost hurt. He begins to murmur her name in apology before she cuts him off. "I've always believed that a penny is copper-plated zinc." She pauses then with a withering look snatches the penny away from his fingers.

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

He gives her the best charm smile he can muster, curling his fingers around her shoulders and facing her toward a large puddle along the curb. "Make a wish and throw it."

"Into a pool of rainwater?" she asks, her voice tinged with skepticism.

He nods and she narrows her eyes at him before turning back toward the water. From where he stands behind her the fresh smell of rain and the fresh smell of vanilla that must be her shampoo is sweet and somewhat overwhelming. A piece of her hair is curled into a neat ringlet over her back and he finds himself wanting to pull his fingers through it. It's new, this desire to be in constant contact with her. And just as often as he finds himself thinking about how nice it would feel to bring her flush against him in another hug, he finds himself considering little things like touching her hair, or sweeping a finger over her cheek.

Maybe when he sees Cam later tonight he'll run the back of his index finger along her cheek, see what all the hype in his mind is about. He swallows, glancing over how unpromising that idea sounds.

Brennan's foot taps an impatient rhythm against the sidewalk and she turns back toward him. "Stop staring at me," she says with a laugh, and he's been caught.

"I'm standing behind you, Bones, how do you even know I'm staring? I think you just don't want to throw that coin."

"You're the one who-"

"_You_ are being avoidant," he says slowly, turning her back around and trying very hard not to stare.

She shrugs away from his grasp and looks down at the penny. "Were I to evaluate the things that I desire right now, I'd have to say that there are very few I'd value at only one cent."

"Bones…"

"Okay, well, my wish is that my father, Columbus," she says, waving the coin, "won't kill and burn anyone else." She shrugs and tosses it carelessly, drops of water bouncing up onto the legs of her pants. Booth comes to stand beside her, placing a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't say that so you'd feel sorry for me," she says simply, eyes still on the puddle. She removes his hand with a smirk. "You were supposed to tell me not to say the wish aloud."

He gestures toward her, grinning at the thought of her half-heartedly thrown penny. "Hey, if you aren't gonna take it seriously." He pauses and digs another coin out of his pocket, telling her to watch and learn. She rolls her eyes, he closes his. He can feel her staring and with an intentioned flick of his wrist flings the coin into the dark water.

"Impressive technique," she murmurs, mirroring the motions of his hand before walking back from the street to lean against the side of a nearby building.

"I've never heard any complaints," he jokes, joining her.

She doesn't get the joke or maybe her mind is elsewhere, because a moment later she turns to him and says, "I would have been better off not having seen him again."

He doesn't have to ask who she's talking about. Who else could it be but the bastard who enters and exits her life whenever he likes? Still, in his inconvenient, irresponsible way, Max does love her. And Booth knows Brennan loves her father, knows how hard she's looked for him, even if he did fail her miserably yet again after all these years. "Come on, you don't mean that, Bones," he says quietly.

"I wouldn't have said it unless I meant it." She pushes the heel of her shoe against the wall, frowning at him. "My father's a murderer who impersonated a priest. I would think you'd be little more offended by that, being Catholic."

"Nah...I'm less offended by that than his abandoning you again."

She bites her lip and doesn't look at him. He worries he's overstepped the line somehow, that he's expressed some personal investment in the things that go on in her life that she never wanted him to have in the first place. "And Caroline was pretty offended that he wrecked her car," he adds lightly, as an afterthought.

She furrows her brow and eyes him slowly. "I don't need you to take care of me."

"I know," he says without a moment's hesitation, Max's request of him still fresh in his mind.

Maybe Max didn't realize that his daughter takes care of herself, that she has taken care of herself for the past fifteen years. Booth knows all he can do is be there to drive her home and not back to the lab, have the key to uncuff her from a bench, stand here beside her as the streetlights flicker.

"Good," she says.

"Bones, I don't think your old man meant that he thinks you are incapable. Just that he doesn't want you to get hurt, that he at least cares enough to not want you to be…uh, harmed in any way," he pauses, considering for a moment. "That's more than a lot of people can say about their fathers."

She studies him for a moment, her eyes clear and made brighter by the lights overhead. He averts his gaze, suddenly feeling that for all her cluelessness about emotions she is nevertheless staring straight through him. "What did you wish?" she asks, navigating the conversation to more neutral territory with a nod toward the puddle and a warm, easy smile. He used to think she never smiled. That she was a nuisance who cramped his style. Now he can't even look away.

"Bones," he whispers, sounding ready to divulge. She scoots closer to him, moving her ear to his mouth. He inhales and her earring scrapes his chin. How long will they stay like this, he wonders. Two, three seconds? He laughs lowly in her ear, a piece of her hair brushing his lips. Maybe longer. Longer, he decides, saying nothing, rather liking the vantage point he has of her lips as they part in confusion.

A second later she whips her head around and faces him. "I told you mine, Booth."

"I never asked you to."

"You sit in a box and confess everything to a robed stranger you can't even see, yet you won't even tell me about a penny."

His hand moves to his chest in mock offense. "Not just a penny, copper-plated zinc."

She tilts her head in that mild expression of annoyance he's become accustomed to, her hair billowing out behind her to tangle with the lights in the distance.

"Give me another penny," she commands, holding her palm out in front of him.

"Sorry, Bones. The bank's closed," he tells her, even as he digs through the pocket of his coat for the face coin she's requested.

After a quick search he produces a penny for her, dropping it lightly into her palm. She contemplates the small weight in her hand, perhaps finding it to be worth more than any penny she's ever held in the past. She turns it thoughtfully, the way Booth might turn a bead of his rosary or the poker chip in his pocket—with muted focus and parted lips.

Her eyes flutter closed, and he moves nearer to take her in. He watches her fingers play at the bumps and ridges on the surface of the coin, her eyes still shut tightly, and he thinks this is the closest he'll ever get to seeing her pray. Prayers and wishes, he wonders, are they really any different?

She stifles a yawn before flicking the penny into the open air. He was right. She is tired. His partner is tired, and it leaves him wondering at the things that have come to worry him where she is concerned. Yawns, and pennies, and fathers. Her hair, her ear, her cheek.

The sink of the coin into murky water. He hardly sees it happen. There's no splash and no sound. When she swivels to look at him he imagines the soft ping he'll never hear when the penny hits the asphalt below.

"What?" she asks, shifting slightly under his gaze.

He blinks at her. "What?"

"I said, 'Now you'll never know my wish either.'" The sides of her lips quirk upwards and he finds his following suit. "You _are_ taking me back to the lab," she says with finality, just loud enough for him to hear.


	3. Your Body is A Wonderland

A/N: I DO NOT own Bones. Or the John Mayer song the title comes from.

**Your Body Is A Wonderland: A Songfic  
**

*********************

_**The end will be a relief.**_

_-My Fortune cookie fortune from dinner last night. _

*********************

Bones hated when Seeley Booth didn't make her breakfast after a night of orgasmic sex. He'd only made her come eleven times last night, she deserved to wake up to coffee and organic banana nut pancakes too. She was Temperance 'Bones' Brennan for god's sake. She wrote bestsellers, she had five PhDs, she was a kung fu master, and she was fluent in seven different languages (not including modern pig latin).

_We got the afternoon  
You got this room for two  
One thing I've left to do  
Discover me discovering you_

Today marked the day that she had run out of new chunky necklaces to wear. She'd have to wear that Ipswitch Guatemalan pendant for the second time in a row—she hoped reruns of _The Girl With the Curl _wouldn't be on again anytime soon, she thinks that's when she last wore it.

"Mary Sue?"

She turned to face her lover, Seeley. He had taught her how to love, how to have emotions, how to make her heart grow three sizes that day. "My name is Brennan, Dr. Temperance Brennan," she said, tears in her eyes at the overwhelming sight of her Booth, right there in front of her.

He gave her his best charm smile. "Oh, baby, sometimes I worry you're too good for me."

"I've never understood why men feel inferior when they find I make two million dollars more annually than they do."

She straddled him and ground against his already throbbing member.

"What are you doing, Temperance?" he asked as she adjusted herself, grabbing hold of him.

"I'm just trying to aim you in the right direction. I do have biological urges, you know."

He smiled that same charming charm smile that made her orgasm with chronic passion every time.

She moaned, never had the pleasure been that intense and excruciating. "Did you make pancakes yet?"

"Yeeeees," he moaned, as he came at the exact moment as her. "Yes, they're sitting in the kitchen."

_One mile to every inch of  
Your skin like porcelain  
One pair of candy lips  
And your bubble gum tounge_

She was panting hot, heavy, tickling breaths in his ear. "Anthropologically speaking, that was fantastic."

"Three weeks from now you'll find you're pregnant and angst-ridden."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means any moment you'll walk out of the door and decide all this sex really meant nothing, I'll shoot at targets to relieve my despair and pain, and we'll have a baby that will bring you closer to realizing we're meant to be."

"Oh."

"We still haven't had angry sex this morning," she whispered in his ear. Her phone rang before her partner could respond.

"Anthropologically, speaking," she answered.

"Sweetie, you'll never believe what I've been doing all night."

"You are my free-spirited best friend so I can only assume it was something wild."

"Sweetie, it sure was." Bones waited with baited breath. "Hodgins and I had a shotgun wedding in Vegas last night."

Bones could hear the abject happiness in her friend's voice. "Really?"

"Yeah, you've gotta try it sometime. What did you do, Sweetie?"

"Well, you know, I worked really late until Booth had to drag me out of the lab and make me eat dinner, because I only eat if Booth is there to remind me to. Then we came home and had sex till dawn. Overall, just your typical day."

"Sweetie…"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, I just felt like saying sweetie again."

"Anthropologically speaking, sweetie is a pet name common to rela--"

"Sweetie, you'll never believe who our best man was."

"Who?"

"Here, he wants to say hello."

Brennan listened at the phone.

"Hello, Dr. Brennan."

"Dr. Goodman?"

Her first guess had been Zack—he had become quite adept at breaking out of the insane asylum.

"Yes."

"How has your sabbatical been?"

_Your body is a wonderland  
Your body is a wonderland I'll use my hands  
Your body is a wonderland_

"Oh…you know, just doing what any old professor-type on indefinite leave does. I watch Jack Bauer torture people once a week, I've tried to write a book before a colleague published one on the same topic, and I went live with my drag persona. You have to come to the Tricky Dick one weekend, I've got top billing."

Bones had met one of her many former boyfriends at the Tricky Dick. It was a popular watering hole for many men. "When I was working on one of my many dissertations I…"

"That's nice, Dr. Brennan. But I don't work with you anymore and sure as hell don't have to listen to that anymore."

She frowned at that, "Hmmm…"

"I've been thinking, if I were just a little bit younger looking and had some sort gimmick or called you all cherie, I'd still be working at the Jeffersonian."

Booth could hear through the phone. "Is that Goodman? Tell him it's because he didn't have the Seeley Booth charm."

"Booth says you lack his charm."

"Booth is there with you?" Goodman asked, his face contortioning into a smile.

"Yes. I took your advice and slept with Seeley Booth."

"Ah…a fine specimen of a man."

"Yes. Except for all the bullet wounds. He's got so many holes in him, I sometimes worry he'll take a sip of water and it will start leaking out of his chest."

"But what a nice chest."

Booth could hear the conversation beside him and remembered his days as a Ranger. It had been so angsty and there had been so much sporadic sand everywhere in the desert. He didn't miss those days.

He left for the kitchen and when he returned Bones looked up at the hunky man in front of her holding banana nut pancakes. She wanted to squeeze his derriere.

Bones ended her long, breviloquent conversation then Booth kissed her plump, red, juicy lips.

_Damn baby  
You frustrate me  
I know your mine oh mine oh mine  
But you look so good it hurts sometimes_

"Oh, Seeley!" she moaned.

"Bones, we've got a case," he whispered in her ear. "Someone died."

"Let's just go for lucky number thirteen first. Okay?"

He nodded, kissing her real hard.

"I'm so glad I jumped into bed with you that one time. I mean…look at us now," she whispered, before her magnificent orgasm.

"Yeah, we're pretty damn hot," Booth said as he came at the exact same time as her. "The sexy scientist and the sexy FBI agent, who'd have thunk it?"

"Hart Hanson."

Booth nodded his head. Hart had said they'd end up in bed.

"Hey, Booth?"

"Yeah."

"Got any sperm?"

"Haha Good one, Bones."

"No, that was the line from last week's sides. This week you're supposed to say _Yes, I do have sperm. And they are doing swimmingly lolz._"

"Oh, then sure."

"Say it."

"lolz"

"lolz"

_Your body is a wonderland  
Your body is a wonderland I'll use my hands  
Your body is a wonderland_

**I was hesitant about doing a morning after scene, but there you go. Please leave me a review or I will makfjkaejfkljklkw (****means _explode like a seagull who's just eaten alka-seltzer_**** in Tagalog).**


	4. Hospital Corners

**Hospital Corners**

_You guys…can I have a Booth? Like, seriously. I don't think he's stupid… _

_Anyway, the thought of Brennan and Booth all dressed up and actually getting to the gala/celebration/banquet in Hero in the Hold makes me all kinds of happy! So I wrote this. _

_The beginning/end bracketing sections take place the morning after all of that Gravedigger jazz. This is rated strong Teen for some slightly naughty things. _

*******

When the day is through, I'll suffer no regrets.

I know that he who frets loses the night.

For only a fool thinks he can hold back the dawn.

He who is wise never tries to revise what's past and gone.

_-Devil May Care, Diana Krall_

*******

She's still wearing her coat. Booth doesn't ask if she's going anywhere after this, only wonders how long she'll stay.

There's a tear in the sheet of his bed, and he turns on his side, watching as his partner pulls at the strings there, fraying them further and not seeming to notice at all. It's early and her coffee is cooling off on his bedside table. Until it's no longer piping hot, he thinks it's nice to watch her play absently with those little threads, to know she's thinking, but not nearly as hard or nearly as much as usual.

"You'd think health care would at least cover decent sheets," he says, hand sliding over hers, stilling it.

Brennan watches his thumb move slowly over her knuckle, eyes flicking to her coffee then finally to his face. "You'd think."

She pulls her hand out from under his, but smiles as she does so, sparing him that little twinge of hurt that she's better at inflicting than she probably knows. He lets her lean back and away, laughing at her hasty movement.

"What, did I suddenly get cooties, Bones?"

She laughs a little too, shaking her head no. Her finger moves to poke him, and yeah…she must need coffee if her first course of action is to push her finger to his arm.

He's about to make some sort of 'is this kindergarten?' comment, but he doesn't. Booth looks down at her finger, still pressed against him, then grips it lightly in his hand, her nail and the chipped red polish there drawing out his amusement.

"Maybe this wasn't worth cancelling yesterday's lunch for after all," he says pointedly to her nail.

"It was the day before yesterday," she corrects. She pulls her finger away, tilting her head to study it. "There was a layer of finish painted over the polish that was supposed to prevent it from chipping. Paired with my dress, Angela said it would be a very striking combination."

He frowns, looking up from her hand—gone from his own again—to her face. "I never saw your dress."

She rolls her eyes at this, shrugging out of her coat. "That's hardly something to be concerned about, Booth."

"It is. What did it look like?"

Her brow furrows. "Well…"

* * *

She wears a black dress, and it isn't boring because there is an intricate design of jewels around the collar.

Booth gets to the gala first because the Jeffersonian's videographer has a tendency to create tributes that are rather saccharine and two-dimensional in nature. She's sure he doesn't like that sort of thing. She's not sure she knows anyone that likes that sort of thing, but she needs an honest account of the exaggerations, the misquotes, and the sentimental piano music, so she asks him to go anyway. And he does.

"Exactly how much fun did you have on that dig in the Who-nun Province?"

She jumps at the familiar voice, low in her ear. An exaggerated sigh escapes her lips and she feels herself grinning, just a little, which is okay because he's standing behind her. "It's Hunan," she says primly, untying the belt of her trench.

Booth's hands, warm and unnecessary, slide over her shoulders, ready to help her off with her coat. Perfectly able to do this herself, she shrugs away, hunching forward then swiveling to face him, bumping the coat check boy in the process.

"Booth, look at what you made me do," she whispers, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him away from the young man who just got her elbow in his face.

His palms shove into his pockets as he leans back on his heels. "That was all you, Bones."

"You should apologize to..." she squints to see the nametag, "…Mark. You should apologize to Mark."

"Ummm…it's okay, really," Mark says, sidling up to the pair of them, arm outstretched for her coat.

She looks warily at Booth before he snatches the trench away from her grasp, handing it off to be checked. "She's sorry," he says quietly to Mark, with a quick pat to his back, once his partner wanders out of earshot.

There's a steady murmur of voices from inside the ballroom, and just from this little corner of the antechamber she can see soft white light reflecting off of the polished floor, radiating around the many feet inside.

She turns, smiles at Booth as he walks toward her. She's not sure she's ever seen him in a tux before; it hangs well on his frame, and by any standard, scientific or subjective, he's attractive.

Booth's attractive. It's a fact.

He's not comfortable at things like this, she knows, but he doesn't show it. To be honest, she's yet to see anyone here who looks this at ease, this good…

"A tux," she says to him, a slow smirk working across her face, eyes bright and dancing as though she's made an inside joke with herself.

"A dress." He smirks right back at her.

Her eyes flick to his waist, to the Cocky belt buckle. His hand clutches it proudly, and she shakes her head a little, their smiles widening in each others faces. "I know you told me over the phone, but still…"

"Still?"

"Just don't show me your socks."

*****

She's smiling a lot. A lot, a lot.

He's not with her for all of the evening. But when he is, when he gets to watch her slip into her element, it's really something to see.

He thinks of his partner and he thinks reason, logic, jargon, blue eyes, that kiss on the cheek, that kiss on the lips, frustration, handcuffs, earrings, his passenger seat, things he'll never (want to) understand, long legs, coffee, things that taste like coffee and peppermint and her all at once, and, well, bones. There's more, there's always more when it comes to her. The fact of the matter is, he associates her with many things, but not people. Never people.

But these people love her.

There's Dr. Todd, who discovered the oldest hominin mandible to date in the African Rift Valley. Brennan knows how to find it on her GPS.

There's Dr. Wynter—no, Frans—that's what he told her to call him once he was no longer her professor.

Dr. Kapranos, the head of the Jeffersonian, who assures her that the medico-legal lab will receive more funding than any department in the Natural History Museum if she tells him how her next book will end.

"I think my publisher would disapprove," she says, and receives praise for her dry wit.

"Did you know anything about parry fractures in Kiowa children?" she asks Booth as he hands her empty glass off to a waiter.

He lifts an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure you know the answer to that."

"I didn't know anything about them either, until about eight minutes ago." She pauses, crossing her legs in front of her as she presses her back to a wall. "You can learn many things at parties. They are an excellent place to exchange information. In other contexts, academics aren't nearly as forthcoming about their work."

He finds himself focused on that place where her knees press together, and words…well, she's saying them. "Yeah, this has been really nice so far."

"I _know_ you hate things like this, Booth." His gaze snaps up to hers at this, and he's got his denial all perfectly-worded in his head when she presses her hot little palm to his chest. "I mean that I don't want you to treat me any differently that you normally do."

"Don't worry, Temperance, I won't."

"I'm serious."

He swallows, smiles, his body moving to flatten back against the wall beside her. "So am I."

***

For this specific reason she had only one glass of champagne, wore a dress that wasn't long enough for her to trip on, and wrote a speech.

Sometimes she makes her own unfounded conjectures, makes them and keeps them to herself. She postulates that this award will be made of crystal or glass and is handed one that's gold on rosewood instead.

A genuine feeling of contentment, that this is good, this is enough, finally enough, floods her as she shakes the hand of one the Jeffersonian's more generous donors. People have told her before that work alone would never fulfill her.

She knows that she's worked for years.

And this, _this_, is very fulfilling; her work is her life and most days she's not ashamed to admit this.

Because her job doesn't entail entertaining people with jokes, she makes her time at the podium short and…as people later tell her…really, very sweet.

"Sweet as in cloying and lacking profundity?"

"Sweet as in we all wish we loved our jobs the way you do, Sweetie."

***

Brennan, Cam, and Angela are sitting on a couch in the bathroom. _The_ couch in the bathroom. Ange's voice echoes off of the tile as she marvels at the acoustics in this place.

"Bren, people are really gonna think we're snobs," she says, ankles crossing neatly in front of her.

"Why?"

"You left right after you got your award."

"No I didn't. We're in the bathroom."

Cam turns to them, resting her head in her hand, waxing nostalgic, "This reminds me of senior prom. Smoking in the bathroom of the Galleria."

"I know, right? With the AC this high you wouldn't even need to crack the window open for ventilation."

Brennan's eyes narrow. "Right."

"I'm sure Hodgins would have come if there were no dress code, hun," Angela says with a manicured hand to her best friend's arm.

Cam stands to fix her makeup, her quiet laugh amplified by the room. "Okay, well, that was random."

"Open bars do that to me."

Brennan shakes her head, chuckling a little at the drink still in Ange's hand. She doesn't know anyone else who would order a martini to bring to the bathroom with her.

"This is all so nice. I mean look at this place," Angela murmurs with a smile, gesturing to the soft whites and pinks of the room.

"It is nice."

"Come on, Bren. You've worked your whole life for a night like this. You're surrounded by the people who you love. Who love you."

And while she definitely wouldn't say her work has all been for a night like this, she agrees to an extent. Except…

"I don't even know most of these people, Angela. The word love is hardly warranted."

"I mean your brother, me, Booth…"

"I don't love Booth. And he doesn't…" Cam rejoins them on the couch, and Brennan trails off, relief, confusion, and a refusal to think about _that_ at a time like _this_ coursing through her and tingeing her cheeks what feels like a deep shade of red.

"Cam, has Dr. Kapranos mentioned increasing our funding in the next fiscal year to you before?" she asks immediately, words clipped.

"There are going to be cuts across the board…Dr. Brennan, are you alright?"

"Yeah, are you, sweetie?"

She stands, chances a look in the mirror—yes, red—then walks toward the door, shooting a glare to her best friend. "Of course."

****

Brennan's fingers ghost over the wet space that's formed around her champagne glass; the droplets there cling to her skin and get drawn back out around the tablecloth. It's loud and the dying verse of a song brings her crimson nails to a pause.

Angela's arms are wrapped around Sweets and she laughs, leaning over the therapist's shoulder to mouth something to Booth or Brennan, maybe both of them.

They turn their heads, smiles spreading across their faces and staying there.

Brennan focuses her gaze, a want of litheness in her limbs as she watches her friend sway easily in the middle of the room. People are having fun. "Sweets' lips…"

"His lips?"

"They're the same color as Angela's dress."

"I think his face is too," Booth says, rubbing his hand against his own face, no stubble there to scrape at his palm or to further the scraping at his conscience. _You're supposed to be dancing, dumbass._ He knows this, is just never sure when, where to proceed with her.

Her fingers start again, moving slowly, absently, to the tempo of the new song, pressing hard to the table at the swell of the band.

His hand slips over and into hers, and he tugs her toward the dancefloor. "Bones," he whispers, blowing back a wisp of her hair in his next breath. Her eyes darken and flicker up to his, then just as quickly they narrow.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping you from putting a hole in the tablecloth," he says shortly, finding himself playing along, eyes shifting to the table, where her hand is sliding out of his.

"Hmm."

"At things like this, people kind of expect the person the event was thrown for to participate."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Booth." He meets her gaze at this and she blinks, bright-eyed, and confused, and faking.

She's one of the worst liars he knows and he shakes his head, at himself, at whatever the hell it is she's doing. His hand moves to grip his tumbler, the liquid there eventually burning the back of his throat, a grimace forming as it goes down.

He's a man and she's a woman, sometimes it really is as simple as that, and the fact that they're just standing here like idiots is more than unbelievable.

It's unacceptable. That's all there is to it.

But then, they both accept it, so there's really no room to complain.

*****

She's not angry with Booth, and she's effective at not caring, for the time-being, if he loves her or if she loves him. The point is: the suggestion alone makes things not feel normal. Things _not_ feeling awkward, or out-of-hand, or unreasonable with Booth is something she's come to count on. She can admit that to herself.

"As a kid, she took her brother's dead hamster and tried to mummify it. And you can bet that little guy's bones are still laying underground somewhere," her father tells a captive crowd of people.

She frowns, eyes rolling then narrowing. "Dad."

"That's Tempe, always curious, always wanting to learn. I remember her, only twelve years old. I sat her down to teach her the things I was teaching my high school physics class. Ideal gases, kinetics, viscosities, thermodynamics—she picked it up like that!" Max says, with a proud snap of his fingers. "I always knew she would be the best at whatever she did," he says solemnly, face turning to look at his daughter.

There follows a series of _awwws_ and _you must be so proud_. Booth shifts beside her, clearing his throat, and she feels very much the pawn in one of her father's schemes.

"He once was on trial for disemboweling the Deputy Director of the FBI." Her voice is low but cuts clearly over the din, and she bites her lip, looking down at one of her shoes then back up again.

An uncomfortable silence settles and suddenly she's getting pulled away by her elbow.

"Let go of me," she whispers, breath uneven, shaky, in Booth's face.

"That was wrong and you know it."

"I taught myself how to calculate the viscosity of ideal gases, and the little he taught me about kinetic energy as a child wouldn't have been enough to get me through even a week of university-level physics."

"You've gotta be kidding me." He chuckles a little and rubs a hand across his forehead. "Okay, you're not…"

"How is this funny?"

"It's not."

Her palm slides halfway over her mouth, elbow resting on the back of a chair. "I know." Booth's still looking almost amused and she laughs a little into her hand, feeling at a loss…

"I'm not going to apologize to him, Booth."

"Okay."

"Maybe it was an inappropriate thing to say."

"It was."

"But it was true. It is true."

****

Angela grabs Brennan's hand and pulls her to the center of the room, where people are dancing. "People this attractive shouldn't be this boring!" she lets out on the last gasp of a laugh, waving a finger in Booth's face.

He shakes his head a bit, hands pushing back his jacket and falling on his waist as he watches the both of them start to move to some jazzy tune. Brennan stops, a huge grin splitting her face as she tilts her head toward Angela. And really, he thinks, she shouldn't have stopped; there are dozens of badly-dancing nerds at this bash and she looks the best out of all of them.

Brennan finds him on the staircase near the front lobby about fifteen minutes later. Face flushed, hair close to falling onto her shoulders, she climbs the few steps up to where he is sitting. She stands there in front of him for a moment, just like that, and he stares up, wanting to wrap his hands around her legs and pull her down into his lap.

"I'm not a good dancer," she says, knee bumping his as she tilts her head down to look at him.

His elbows slide back onto the step behind him; it's bad enough with her breasts right over his face like this, but he wants to know what the backs of her knees feel like a little too much not to move his hands away.

"Of course you are," he reassures. "I've danced with you before, I know."

"You're not a good dancer either, so no, you don't." She knocks her knee to his again, making a point. "Men sometimes find odd ways of making advances on women. 'Did you read McCullough's new paper on digital craniofacial reconstruction?' seems like an innocuous question, but Angela said a guy asked me it solely as a way to start 'coming on to me'."

"You see, that's because you're surrounded by nerds in this place," he says, as she finally moves to sit on the step beside him. He leans in and her mouth falls open a little, face turning to his. "A normal guy, _a normal guy_, would just say, 'You look beautiful, Bones.'"

"Except he wouldn't call me Bones."

Her warm breath in his face heats something in him, and he leans into that little space between them.

"Men would have been more willing to talk to me if you weren't there," she whispers.

There's no anger, no resentment. All of it's a statement of fact and he knows that she's right.

But, the thing is, he doesn't really care how many thirty-something, male PhDs she missed out on talking to tonight.

And he's not sorry.

"I didn't intend for that to come out the way it did, Booth."

"Yeah, well, it's fine," he says, shifting himself up onto the step behind her. His fingers push into the loosening knot of hair at the back of her head, finding a pin and handing it to her. She lets out a small yawn, leaning back against his knee, and he continues until her hair falls over her shoulder and his leg in waves.

Absently, he hands her the final hairpin, eyes on the skin of her back that he's still able to see through the strands of her hair. She shakes it out a little bit, the tips sweeping across his knee and then part of his face as she pushes herself up onto his stair. His breath quickens then catches and he feels a tightening in his crotch as she leans into his face.

"That's—you found that arousing, me shaking out my hair," she says, recognition dawning on her face and her cheeks flushing a happy shade of pink.

"Wow, Bones…that's a pretty big leap-"

"But I'm correct, aren't I?"

He doesn't answer, his fingers reaching, and she moves closer, hair falling forward, brushing both of their faces. He moves to touch it, fingers slipping over and through and then resting on her shoulder. "You look beautiful, Bones. You are beautiful."

"Thank you," she breathes.

Her hand slides across his thigh, lids falling a little over the deep blue of her eyes. And whatever the extent of the frustration, the tension, the years it's taken to get to this, he wouldn't have had it any other way. "Booth, do you want to leave?"

"Do you?"

"Yeah."

*****

In the car, he slips his jacket off, and she imagines the muscles contracting under his shirt with the movement. It's dark and it's late and she would like to kiss him; she's sure this is a natural effect of something like the combination of champagne, proximity, and there not being light enough to make any of this look like it could be a bad idea.

He loosens his bowtie, throws it off somewhere behind his seat, and it seems appropriate when he parks in front of the diner talking of real food and pie. She nods—grilled cheese would be nice—takes out her heavy earrings and throws them down into his change compartment.

Because it looks warm and comfortable, and despite this going against her better judgment, she slips his jacket on as she moves to get out of the car. The jacket smells clean and like his cologne; and it _is_ warm, either from sitting very near to the air vent, or from having just been pressed to his body a moment ago. On the sidewalk, he pauses when he sees her, mouth falling agape under the streetlights.

She looks away, bites the inside of her cheek as she starts to walk to the diner door. "I know I have my own jacket, but-"

"It's okay," he says, hand rubbing a slow circle across her back as the bell on the door tinkles at their entrance.

"I know there's significance in this. One of us has the upperhand in the partnership now."

"Bones…." he trails off, rolling his eyes as she slides into the seat across from him. She thinks that since Booth took off his bowtie, it would also have made sense to loosen the constricting top few buttons of his shirt. "Which one of us is it?" he asks, leaning over the table.

"I don't know." She really needs time to think. "Once I gather the significance I'll tell you."

"Okay."

***

"Amazing," he says dryly to his pie.

Brennan nods down at her GPS as a monotone voice carries out of the speakers. "It really is." She moves the little gadget into his view, frowning as his hand pushes her, or rather his, jacket sleeve up from over her wrist and back to her elbow. "Your apartment. 5.3 miles from mine."

"Not all of us can afford to live in Dupont Circle." He smirks. "Or buy electronics that talk to us while we eat."

"Not even your comments can lessen my enjoyment of this," she says before biting hard into her sandwich. He laughs, slipping out of his side of the booth to settle down beside her. She eyes him skeptically, and scoots down to the end of the bench, typing something into her GPS.

"This. This is where Dr. Todd found that mandible," she says quietly to the screen, and Booth smiles over at her, sliding down and crowding her against the window.

"Booth."

He looks down at the screen and all that's there is a big green square with patches of brown inside. Chuckling, he points. "This is it, right there?"

"That vicinity, yes."

He nods, points to another spot of green. "Right there?"

"Booth."

Another. "Here?"

"Booth."

"Or here?"

"These things aren't quite _that_ precise."

He slips the tiny gadget out of her hand. Brennan lifts up in her seat, pushing past his chest to grab for it. Fingertips brushing hers atop the table, mouth inches from her ear, he finds himself occupying a staggering amount of her space. "You'll have to get the check, if I decide to leave right now," she murmurs.

"Kinda hard for you to do that with me right here though, huh?" .

"You're acting very strange."

"In what way?"

"In the 'coming on to me' way."

He averts his eyes to his pie, palm accidentally banging on the fork as he leans away. And just like that, he thinks, she's got the upperhand.

*****

They've been waiting a long time at the elevator, shoulders close, the _up_ button lit. She sighs, tilting her head to look through the slat. There's no car coming. Something must be stuck. And it's no surprise, really, because this always, always happens.

"Broken?" Booth asks.

"Probably."

But there's no sign telling them this, no reason to move right now. So they don't.

He raises his eyebrow at her and she shrugs, turning back to the metal door. The scratches on it leave them looking blurry, and she smiles, shifting as her shoes start to pinch at her feet.

"I _am_ a super-scientist. Top of my class, best in my field, all of that," she says quietly to her reflection.

His eyes catch hers in that metal door, face melting into a little bit of a grin. "You didn't need an award to tell you that, Bones."

"You're right. I didn't." She pauses, pulling her lip between her teeth. "I left it in the car by accident. The award."

"Do you want me to get it?"

She shakes her head no then brushes past him, heading for the stairs. She's never invited him or anyone else up for coffee at two in the morning, there's something inherently illogical in doing so. That is, unless coffee doesn't mean coffee at all.

His steps are silent behind her and she sees his hand above hers, feels his chest to her back as she pushes open the door to the stairwell.

"Moving kinda slow there, Bones. Tired?" he teases as the door behind them begins to close in painstaking increments. Finding herself annoyed by this she reaches past him to push it all the way shut, once and for all.

He laughs. "What was that for?"

"The door. It was…moving kind of slow."

"It's a good thing we're not though, huh?" he asks on a quiet sort of chuckle.

And yes, _yes_, she gathers the significance of that.

His tongue moves quickly to wet his lips, and he's ruffling his fingers through his hair, tilting his head to study her. His eyes turn a darker, more heated shade, and she finds her next breath coming out as a frustrated sort of sigh. She wants his eyes to stay hot on her like this, wants his hands, his lips closer, here, now, the way they're both suggesting—fast not slow. She wants to be rational.

Rational people wouldn't already have it worked out in their head exactly how they'd like their partner to take them in a stairwell. Rational people don't think of public stairwells in that way at all.

Her flight response kicks in, only she ends up not running away, merely taking the steps up to her apartment in twos. She smiles, tilts her head, and gets a head start on him. Only, she forgets that four flights of stairs is a long way to go in shoes like these.

Their breath quickly becomes short from laughter. He's flying up the stairs, really quite fast, but then she is too, she thinks. The concrete pounds against her feet, and for every force exerted there's an equal and opposite-

"God. Stop. Stop," she laughs, as her hand grabs for his, because this is unfair, so unfair. She's got a three inch raise in her center of gravity to contend with.

He stops, smiling down at her shoes from where he's standing. "Geez, Bones. If you took those damn things off."

Hand still in hers, he moves back down the steps to where she is. His palm slides to cup her cheek. "Beautiful," he whispers, then with a small sort of chuckle leans down toward the step, pulling her shoe away.

"Oh, don't," she murmurs as he presses against her, the shoe dangling precariously in his hand over the stairwell. She's not sure if she's talking about her shoe or his lips. She's smiling a lot. A lot, a lot. He is too.

The shoe clatters onto the flight below as his hands reach for the handrail behind her, pulling himself closer. She frowns at him, there was no reasonable, rational point to more or less throwing her shoe down the stairs. But then, if he's able to give a little on his preference for going slowly, she can forsake a modicum of her rationality. Give and take, that's what this is, and she leans up to kiss him.

Blueberries and scotch. That's what he tastes like. He groans a little into her mouth, his tongue touching her own, tasting her as her arms wrap around his neck.

The railing digs into her back, cold through her dress once he's divested her of his jacket. "Damn buttons," she gasps into his ear, making them laugh a little again, as her hand moves to his chest.

Her foot is bare in this concrete stairwell. It's unsanitary. It's cold. Suddenly it's not a problem anymore as he grabs for her thigh, pulling it against his hip, her center pressing against his through their clothes. "Not here," he whispers into her mouth as her hand moves to his belt buckle.

She takes off her other shoe and they take the last flight of stairs up to her apartment. As her key slips around the lock on her door, he laughs against her neck and chest—it takes what must be a full two minutes before she manages to let them in.

He's clumsy with the zipper on her dress, slow to the mark, as they move into her hallway, her hand feeling for her light switch then giving up after mere seconds.

She thinks this could get awkward, this could be the both of them against a wall and become a mistake the moment one of them pulls away for breath. They stumble into the dark of her bedroom, neither of them able to see, neither of them apologizing when she trips over his feet in her haste, knocking her head to his in the dark. Clothes off, heels of her feet at the base of his back, she wonders why this has never happened before. They're Brennan and Booth, why wouldn't they fit seamlessly together like always, why wouldn't there be satisfaction in not having to hear her name fall lackluster from some other man's lips? Why wouldn't Booth be able to push himself over and into her, intense and needing this just like she does?

This is good, they are very good together. Better than good. Much better, she thinks, once they're laying in the dark, having finished and caught their breath.

"Bones."

His voice is quiet in the still of her room, and the last thing she wants to do is discuss this. She's silent, not asleep, but lying there, still against his body. She's here and so is he. She's perfectly fine with that. Just…she needs time to think.

"In the morning, okay? In the morning you know we'll have to talk about this."

She nods into his chest.

Yes. Okay. In the morning.

Maybe she'd leave before then, if this wasn't her bed.

He sighs into her neck, his hand smoothing across her back until she's sure he's not just fumbling in the dark.

Maybe she'd leave once there was light enough outside the window for her to see this: his arm wrapped around her. Maybe all of this would look and feel out of place.

But then, she thinks, probably not.

*******

And yes, this is more, much more, than just coffee.

* * *

In the morning, she's at his bedside, blowing on her coffee before taking a slow sip. He wonders how many times he's seen her do that over the course of the past four years. "Do you still think everything happens for a reason?" she asks, pushing him back onto the bed as he starts to sit up.

"It does," he groans, frowning at her.

"You want to believe that."

"No, Bones. I do. Doesn't mean I don't wish things had worked out differently, that I don't wish I had been able to see you get that award last night."

"I know you, Booth, and you would have found it very dull, the people far too pedantic and the food served in portions much smaller than you like."

"First of all, I'm not even sure whatever that word you said means," he says, rubbing his hands together as a nurse brings him breakfast, complete with pudding by special request. They take good care of him here. "And you know that none of that would have mattered," he whispers sincerely, holding her gaze.

She moves her eyes to his tray of food, pulling the lid off of his pudding and handing him a spoon. "None of it mattered anyway, in the end."

"Bones—"

"No, not _Bones._ I'm glad we're here. Not _here_ specifically, but here."

He watches her hand move under her head, propping it up as she leans onto his hospital bed. "You're sleepy," he says, punctuating this point with a wave of his spoon.

"I'm being honest," she says quietly.

He smiles at this, at the darkening of her eyes that accompanies the conviction in her statement. He grabs her empty hand in his own. "Break me out of here?" he asks earnestly.

She narrows her eyes at him, and he makes his as pleading as he possibly can. _Pleeease, Bones_ he wants them to say.

She sighs. "Okay."


	5. Underneath the Sodium Lights

**Underneath the Sodium Lights**

_A tag for The Science in the Physicist. The song Katherine Kiss Me by Franz Ferdinand has been on repeat on my ipod, and the title comes from that song. _

_

* * *

_They're not the types to close down the bar—not on a random Thursday night, not ever. Still, they're here, and technically it's already morning; Brennan's beer is warm in her hand and still nearly full. She stopped sipping at it a long time ago. She pushes the bottle onto the table and as it wobbles Angela laughs, sucking at the little bit of beer that sloshes onto her hand, asking if French fries might possibly work into that whole sexual anorexia thing. She did eat before this, she swears. Just…fries, yum, right? Even for vegetarians. And the diner is right there across the street…

Brennan turns her head, chin tucking into her shoulder as she meets Cam's slow grin with her own. And while these smiles come at the expense of their at-the-very-least incredibly tipsy friend, they can be considered a form of female bonding, she thinks.

Angela wraps her arm in Brennan's, nodding resolutely, hair falling down in front of her eyes. "I am not going to worry. Hodgins is fine, I'm sure. I mean, he totally is, right?"

"That's the spirit," Cam lets out on a laugh.

Angela slips her arm out of Brennan's, enveloping Cam in an appreciative sort of hug.

"Actually, I think you got a little _too much_ of the spirit, Ange," Brennan says, voice sounding too loud over the low chatter in the now nearly empty bar. She feels rather witty though, in the way people often find Cam to be.

"Good one, Dr. Brennan."

Angela sends a faux glare in both Brennan and Cam's direction before returning to what has tonight become her default expression: hazy-eyed and glazed over.

The poor delivery aside, Brennan knows she made a very good joke, and she basks in that knowledge for a few seconds. Her eyes scan the room, stopping on the place where she last left her partner. She pushes a piece of her hair back off of her shoulder, smiling a little to herself as she remembers how just a moment ago he complained to her retreating back, claiming she was abandoning him to talk about shoes.

Beside him now is a dark-haired woman, and he's got this big charming grin on his face. He pauses a moment, then laughs at something she's said, eyes following her hair as she flips it out and back.

Brennan's hands fold over the table as she leans forward onto it, turning her head to watch. She knows he likes to make people laugh, that he has often liked making her laugh. She never manages to find anything he says nearly as amusing as this woman does though.

There are jokes, references, things they should be able to laugh at together, that slip past her, leaving nothing but her blank stare in their wake. A request for him to elucidate his thought process, while necessary, rarely fails to feel wrong. She wants to know things, the practical things he knows; there's irony, she's sure, in being an anthropologist who is so seemingly out of touch with her own native culture.

She wasn't wrong in having said that every element is Booth's element. Adapting: that's what he's good at. He's very good at _this_, she thinks, reaching for her beer and letting the bitter liquid wash down her throat. Very good at…flirting.

There are times she feels certain she has direct knowledge of that fact.

"We should leave soon, do you…" Ange trails off, following Brennan's line of sight. "Men. You're gone just five minutes and look what happens, right?"

"I've been away from the bar for longer than five minutes," she says evenly, as the woman gestures toward Booth's cheek, gently cupping her palm and reaching—

Brennan turns around to face Angela, blinking, her stomach seeming to drop for one fleeting moment. That beer—it was warm, odd-tasting. She shouldn't have taken another sip. "Oh gosh, sweetie, you just turned _way_ redder than me."

"That's because we've both been drinking, Ange."

"Not you. Not really." Angela raises her hands in a placating gesture, giggling at whatever is going on behind her friend's back. "Don't worry, she didn't touch him."

Brennan makes a big show of shrugging, shoulder brushing her earring with the exaggerated movement. Angela rolls her eyes. "Booth can let whomever he wants touch him," Brennan says, quietly, still facing firmly away as she takes another swig of her beer. She makes a face.

"I know, right, that woman's not even cute. But she's not blonde…I told you he doesn't have a type."

"Maybe she's a lawyer," Brennan says with a smile.

"You are just full of jokes tonight. I like you like this, hun."

"I'm going to grab my coat and then we can leave."

"Take your time," Angela says, nodding casually over at the coat in question, folded over the bar stool next to Booth. Her smile turns suggestive and Brennan shakes her head, frowning back at her friend.

Angela can joke about this all she likes, she already does, but Brennan knows the implication that the partnership between Booth and herself is anything more than professional has no basis whatsoever. She stalks off for her coat, knuckles scraping the wood of the stool as she gathers it in her hand.

"Bones," she feels Booth breathe close to her ear, the way he usually does when the bar is crowded and loud and the only people they care for talking to are each other. He says her name just like this, hand sliding to hers.

"Oh," she murmurs back, gripping tightly to her coat as she turns to face him. "I'm going to leave."

He pushes his drink away, looking back at her in disbelief, a smirk on his face. "What do you mean you're going to leave? You came with me. Come on, you wanna go?"

He stands, grabbing for his wallet, and she presses a firm hand to his shoulder, pushing him down into his chair. "No, stay, really."

"Bones—" he begins to say, rubbing at his chin, before Brennan reaches across him, proffering her hand to the woman he had been talking to. Her nose is rather large. Neanderthalsalso had large nasal apertures.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan," she says shortly.

The woman smiles weakly down at her hand before grabbing her drink and walking away.

Booth chuckles. "_Ouch_, Bones."

She curves her palm a little bit inward, saying nothing, and gently grabs for his chin. Her fingers slide down a fraction, and he sighs a little in her face, his breath smelling a bit like lemon or lime, but not bitter like the beer.

"Does it still hurt?" she asks, turning his face to the side for her inspection.

"No. No, I'm fine. I didn't mean that kind of ouch."

She pulls away, and he smiles when she drops her coat back onto the stool. "I think that woman was going to give you her number."

His hand reaches, moving her coat into his lap. He looks pointedly down at the barstool, _her _barstool, waiting for her to sit. She doesn't and he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, but she notices. "You think so?"

"Yes." Her elbow slides onto the bar, and she kicks absently once or twice at the stool between their bodies. He's good at this: asking questions, little ones that somehow carry significance. Precision, completeness: that's what he likes in answers. She likes that about him. "I know you, Booth, but only in certain capacities. You can be difficult to read. I think that if she's left a mark, as you say, or if you left one of her, in a metaphorical but still-"

"Bones, that's not how it works," he says quickly, cutting off her words and train of thought. She opens her mouth again and he gives her a look—she lets her lips fall back into place. "Listen, it takes more than three minutes for someone to leave a mark."

Her body straightens and she raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps the beginning of an imprint then."

"It takes time, Bones. Months and years of knowing someone. And the time that goes into getting to know that person—that's where the marks, the imprints come in. That's why that Collar guy had it all wrong. To act like they aren't there, to scrape them off _just like that_? It's like saying that time was a waste. Like saying that knowing that person was a waste."

She feels her cheeks get hot, and for no good reason she turns her head to look at the colorful rows of bottles behind the bar. She knows he's talking to her. Not just to her, but about her. At least, that's how it feels. And Booth is big on feelings.

"You make it all sound so…calculating," she says, sliding onto the empty stool. "If a person chooses to move on sooner rather than later, if that person refuses to be held back by the past, it doesn't mean they want the past to just go away. It isn't somehow equivalent to scraping things away."

"I know, Bones. You cope with things differently."

"I was speaking generally."

"Yeah."

She turns to look at him. He's tapping two of his fingers on the bar and watching her watch him. It's late and she's not sure what he's waiting for, what he's expecting. She's not sure what _she's_ expecting. She should just go; Angela is probably ready to leave. Probably watching them, too.

He moves her coat off of his lap and onto the stool beside him. "So, speaking generally…" he draws out, laughing a little as he pulls his beer to his lips for another swig.

"Speaking generally…well, Angela and Cam don't like men." Brennan almost laughs now, too, shaking her head as Booth coughs on his beer. "Drawing from my own experience, and from an evolutionary perspective, I'd have to agree that their general lack of dependability, among other things, makes them unlikeable." Her eyes turn up to Booth's, lips curving into a smile. "But, I do like you."

He grins, scooting onto the edge of his stool, closer to her. "So…you think I'm dependable."

"You have other likeable qualities, as well."

He gently bumps his elbow to hers. "So do you."

"Thank you."

"How about _you_ pick up the tab and I'll tell you some of them." he whispers through his smile, leaning in closer.

She rolls her eyes. This is a familiar argument. Her typical response would go something like: 'How about _you_ pay _and_ tell me my likeable qualities?' To which his dry response might be: 'Nice to know there's something in it for me, Bones.'

That kind of back and forth is typical of a Thursday night after work. Except now it's really Friday morning.

"Booth, I could have gone out with Dr. Collar and received a number of compliments, without having to pay for his drinks."

"Why didn't you?" he asks quietly, frowning at her.

"Why didn't _you_ ask that woman for her number? You bore all of the clinical signs of attraction, you were leaning in toward her body, you we-"

"Clinical? Attraction is not some sort of disease, Bones."

"In extreme cases, it actually _can_ present symptoms comparable to certain diseases," she says briskly, even as he shakes his head at her.

She moves to push herself up and away from the bar, thinking she should probably go. Her hands are sticking slightly to the wood surface; Booth's are sticking there next to hers, even as she avoids his eyes. The symmetry of this—it isn't odd, not anymore—it feels very typical of the nights they spend here. Sweets likes to point to body language as an explanation of so many things, and there were times when she did worry this might somehow be more than just his hands next to hers. But it's not. People like to look for significance that just isn't there. Sometimes even she is guilty of this. It is a natural human course of action to attempt to explain the unexplainable.

"You know," Booth says, pointing a finger as she pushes the barstool back. "I bet even you can't use reason and logic to explain away why you didn't go on a date with that guy."

She eyes him, sliding out of her seat. "I never said that I could." Brennan sees his mouth fall slightly open and her lips press together in a tight smile. "I promised Ange I'd take her home if she got…"

"Drunk?"

"Yeah." She grabs for her coat, leaning in toward him. "You still didn't answer my question."

"You didn't answer mine either," he counters, chuckling lowly in her face. "Like quid pro quo, Bones. Only not. Nothing for nothing."

She understands his joke, only, she doesn't find it funny. So she doesn't laugh. He notices, and grabs for her arm as she begins buttoning up her coat, his eyes dark in the already dimly-lit room. "I mean, sure Bones, it's nice being attracted to someone," he says quietly. "Even nicer when you know they're attracted to you. But in the long run, that's…you know…"

"No, I don't."

"People need more than that. Even you."

Her head tilts as she studies him, and there's a small pang of something in her chest, because... "Well, I _am_ a person, Booth." She pulls away and smiles before he can apologize. "I have to go."

She starts to turn and he grabs again for her arm, stilling her as he jumps off of his stool. She manages a whispered _what?_ before his arms wrap around her back. His smile is the last thing she sees before her cheek's against his chest and he's hugging her. It happens too quickly and _they_ don't do this sort of thing in public (well, except for that one time at Angela's wedding); no one in the bar seems notice or care anyway.

"Why are you doing this?" she murmurs in his ear as her arms finally wrap around his waist. She feels a small shiver follow his hand as it moves along her back—and things like that are what she doesn't know how to explain.

"You ask way too many questions, Bones," he says quietly as he pulls her closer, knuckles brushing the tips of her hair before he moves away.

Her arms drop from away from his body, and her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip—she can't quite remember if that is listed as a clinical sign of attraction. "I'll see you later, Booth. Whenever we get our next case."

He laughs a little, pushing past the bit of awkwardness there. "Or tomorrow, for lunch?"

"Okay." She nods then smiles over her shoulder as she heads for the door. "Goodbye, Booth."

"Bye, Bones."

"God, that so looked like one of those time stops moments. Did it?" Angela asks, sighing a little as she falls into step beside her friend.

Brennan's brow furrows as she pushes open the door and steps onto the sidewalk. "Did it what?"

"Did it stop? Did time stop?"

"That's not even possible, Ange."

"With the right guy, sweetie, it totally is."

Brennan disagrees. She finds herself peering through the window of the bar as she and Angela walk past. Her partner pulls some money out of his wallet and slides it over toward the bartender. The streetlights are dull overhead and there's a flicker as one of them starts to die out. Her hands go to her pockets—it's cool for April, and she feels a little odd with her arms dangling there beside her.

Booth is…he looks warm, sitting there.

"My father is insane, Bren. You'll never believe what he did," Angela says, hooking her arm in that of her best friend, pulling her toward the street. "Okay, really, it's kind of funny, but…"


	6. There is a Light that Never Goes Out

**There is a Light that Never Goes Out**

_A tag for Mayhem on the Cross. The title comes from The Smith's song of the same name. _

* * *

Booth likes to say things. Nice things. Very nice things.

He doesn't step around her like she's broken glass, doesn't treat her like she's this damaged person. Because she's not, and neither is he. They are people, and people determine for themselves whether they want to be damaged or something else entirely. Booth chooses to be a good person. He _is_ a good, good person. For Brennan, there's something incredibly good in knowing this.

In knowing Booth.

Just like he knows her.

Without the music, the simmering pots, and Sweets' renewed and slightly-tipsy attempts to impart to Brennan the relevance and importance of psychology, Booth's apartment is quiet. It's just the two of them, and she's glad she stayed this long.

She moves from the dimly lit living room to the dark of his kitchen, her jacket already on as she prepares to leave. There's some quiet satisfaction in knowing his place well enough to not need a light.

Her wine glass gets placed in his sink, and she nudges the faucet on, pushing her fingers under the gush of water. She makes it cold, but for no particular reason other than that cold water is less damaging to the skin.

Her hand tips a little to let some flow off of her hand and down into the glass below. In her kitchen sink at home, back when home was a suburb in the Midwest, she discovered that glass is decidedly more dense than water.

"Bones, you do realize I have a light in here?"

She turns to find Booth at her back. He reaches for the light switch, smiling then frowning down at her hands.

There is nothing wrong with her hands. The pads of his fingers are almost rough, she's never wondered why; but hers, _hers_ are as smooth as if there had never been a time when she pushed them into a sink full of dishes and piping hot water, night after night, at all.

Booth shouldn't worry about her so much.

She pulls her hand away, patting a wet palm to his. "It's not hot. See."

His hand grabs hold of her own, slipping slightly until it's more their fingers touching as he grasps onto her. The water's still running in the background and her hand is half as wet as before, now that so much water has dripped into his. A part of her wants to smear what's left of it onto his shirt, across his chest. If he didn't look so damn serious right now she thinks that she would. Or maybe it's his looking at her like this that makes her want to do it in the first place.

His eyes grow dark, and he reaches to turn off the faucet, placing a towel into her damp, open palm as he pulls away.

He brings his wet fingers to his chin. By this time of night it's always slightly scratchy and coarse with stubble; on the occasion he hugs her goodbye it scrapes and leaves the side of her cheek a little red. _Metaphorical marks, Bones_, he says. But still, she thinks there's something very primal in this.

"I'm sorry about what happened to you," he says quietly. "Back when I read your file, it said nothing about any of that. You had to have known that what those people were doing was wrong. Why didn't you report any of it?"

She dries her hands then pushes the towel to his chest. "There's nothing to be sorry about. It was eighteen years ago."

"Your grandfather…Bones, you said you had a grandfather who got you out."

She looks up at him, her face that blank, confused expression she's sure he knows so well. "Out of the car trunk?"

"The foster care system."

She knows this _why don't you share?_ face of his well, too. She's clumsy, fumbling, with feelings. And she shared—today, in Sweets' office, she shared. That should be enough: for her, for Booth, for the both of them. Really, she wants to go.

"Yes, I did say that." She nods and turns to point toward his door. "I'm going to leave. Thank you, Booth. For everything."

She swivels and heads for the door. He stops her before she reaches for it. Silent, but as if to say _hold_ _on Bones, there's got to be more to it than that. So much more you should feel, so much more for you to tell me. _

He always wants her to feel more, she doesn't begrudge him this. Sometimes she also wants exactly that; on some things they do manage to see eye to eye. But right now, with his eyes locked on hers, a hand pulling her closer, and the light from the living room not quite reaching the foyer, it feels safer to not feel anything at all.

Sometimes it feels safer to have a witness, a Gordon Gordon or a Sweets. There are days she's not sure what she's supposed gather beyond what's there—plain and clear. Subtext, she knows, is more than things that go unsaid. It's _we_ and _us_ and not just Booth and Brennan, but pronouns that slip out against your better judgment, words and assumptions you never bother to correct. It's that unseen little twinge that comes from knowing someone's favorite sports teams, what his mouth tastes like, the way he takes his coffee, then sitting down beside him in the shelter of a bus stop and finding you know very little about him at all.

It's his hand, hot in hers right now, and still wet.

Sometimes she's prone to over-analyzing. She's aware, also, that she's prone to not noticing the things she should be analyzing in the first place.

"Bones, when you told me that, about your grandfather, were you telling me the truth?"

"Clearly, you don't believe that I was." She sighs, moving away. "And you're correct, I was lying to you. That's what I told everyone. Surely you can see how that was an easier explanation."

He's quiet, staring at her for a moment. And the last thing she wants to do is stand here explaining why she lied to him four years ago. So she doesn't.

"Bones…" He pushes on the door as she moves to open it, and she turns, facing him, feeling her eyes water slightly before she even gets a word out. She bites her lip before it starts to tremble, and she just wants to leave.

"No one wanted me, Booth. Not even my brother. I was fifteen and alone, I was completely alone…"

He moves toward her and she backs away a little, the back of her hand wiping at the corner of one of her eyes. This all feels very childish.

"As a species, we can be self-serving and cruel, and I thought this was the general case for so long. I thought this for so long, because these people, some of them they take you into their houses and they treat you like you aren't human at all."

She hears her voice on the verge of cracking and feels a tear fall down onto her cheek—_she_ feels she's on the verge of cracking, or something metaphorically akin to that. Her eyes get averted to the ground and she moves away again, pushing her hair back behind her ears, as he steps toward her.

"And some human beings…some human beings, Booth, they can't help it if they're clumsy or quiet or if they don't believe in god, and heaven and hell, or if they don't have people who want them. And I wanted to be good, I wanted be good enough…but there's no such thing, there's no such thing, Booth, because sometimes I still feel so…"

His eyes are shiny now, wet, and she inhales, not even sure where she left of. _Alone_, maybe that's what she meant to say…what she means to say.

She shakes her head a little, wiping at her cheek, and she lets him pull her toward his chest. Burying her face there. _Shhh…_ he whispers into her hair, and really she would be quiet, she would stop this if she could. There's no handkerchief and her tears soak into his shirt instead.

There's a quiver in his voice as he starts to speak into her ear. "Clumsy people, clumsy people…Bones, are you listening?"

She laughs into the welcome warmth of his chest, nodding and finding no will to pull away. She likes the feel of his breath in her ear.

"Clumsy people…they can't piece people's faces back together from a pile of bone shards. Do you ever see yourself when you do that? Your fingers, Bones. They're not clumsy at all. You're the best at what you do, and you do it because you care, because you're a good person, despite everything that happened to you. You've always been better than good enough, okay? And, hey, you'd have to be a good person to put up with me every day."

She sniffs a little into his shirt and drops her arms away from where they've wrapped around his back, pulling back to look at him. "What are you talking about?"

"What?"

"You think that I don't like you?" She shifts her gaze away from the wet spots she left smeared across his chest.

He says nothing, the sleeve of his shirt wiping quickly at the wet corner of her eye. The gesture, what he's doing—touching her more, and more, and more every day—it's not unwelcome, and a part of her appreciates the conscious and unconscious motivations that might compel someone, Booth, to want to touch her. The frequency, the length of contact, escalates. Always it's a little bit of him rubbing off on her—that's how it feels. She can appreciate even that feeling at times, too.

Her throat still feels a little choked and she doesn't understand what he finds funny in implying that somehow he's not good. Sometimes she holds back, doesn't say the things she wants to say to him. Tonight she decides not to do that.

"Booth, I don't know why, sometimes I come over here for no reason at all. But I do like being here…with you."

"I'm glad that you do," he says, smiling. She smiles back.

"You have me, Bones. And Angela, and Hodgins, and Cam, and even your father now. You're not alone." His hand reaches for her shoulder and she hardly notices, her eyes on the somewhat familiar expression on his face that she can't quite comprehend. She can't comprehend, but it's something she would never want their therapist's help in helping her to decode. "You shouldn't ever feel that you aren't wanted. You are wanted, Bones." He pauses.. "I…I don't think you realize how much."

Somehow he reads her, somehow he knows exactly what to say. It's not even unnerving anymore. Only appreciated.

She meets his gaze and his face is flushed a little red. "Your grandfather, Booth, he was a nice man?"

He chuckles a little, nodding his head. "Yeah, the best."

"Was it your father who made you want to kill yourself? How did your grandfather help?"

His hands move to his hips and he stares at her for a moment. She wonder's if she's been too blunt. "He…my grandfather, he…" Booth trails off, rubbing his palm against his forehead. She nods, encouraging him to continue.

He leans in to her. "One day, okay, Bones? One day I'll tell you. I promise. Just not tonight."

Booth likes to say things. Nice things. Things like this.

_One day, Bones. I promise._

She's finds herself nodding. There's something resolute, so sure, in the way he says it that not only does she want to believe him, she does. It's illogical, yet somehow not at all; he keeps promises. She used to be fastidious in keeping track of things like this—mistakes, promises made and kept, the number of nights he spent with her boss before he told her he was doing exactly this, information withheld. But the running score fell by the wayside at some point in time, without earning her notice.

"When, Booth?"

"Bones, it's just that there are some things it's hard for me to tell anyone, even you. I'm not the same person I was twenty years ago."

"Yes, I understand. It's hard for me to do the same. _But I do._ I tell you things, Booth." He drops his eyes, running a hand through his hair.

Oftentimes, with her, he uses some form of physical contact in his attempts to get her to be more open. So she tries this, her palm touching his chest, over his pocket as she did earlier this evening. The movement's slow, and almost shy because she's not sure she's doing this correctly. He looks down at her hand, his breath touching the tips of her fingers. Her palm slides away the moment his eyes turn back up to hers. "I'm sure there's nothing you could tell me that would make me think less of you," she murmurs.

"No, but to really understand that for a very long time I hated myself, hated being alive—I mean, that's not something I'm proud of, Bones. I don't want you to ever see me as that man, because that's not who I am."

"Booth, I wouldn't. I know who you are…"

She's sure that she does know him.

The problem with situations like this, she thinks, is that she can never be sure what to do, what to say next. He reads emotion, reads her, incredibly well. And he knows exactly how to get answers and confessions. There's something complex enough about this skill to make it beyond her comprehension. He reads between the lines and she's still learning to navigate the one he drew years ago. She feels she toes it on nights like these, when her back's to his door and she tells him she's leaving without actually doing so.

If she could read him he'd be her favorite book, cover to cover, toe to scalp—no references to gather, his skin, his face, a language she can understand. But she can't, and she tries.

"People share things with one another," she says earnestly. "You taught me that—that as partners, surely even as-"

"Bones, stop." His palms come to rest on her shoulders, gently. "Please, I don't want to talk about this."

"Fine," she says, matter-of-factly, staring down at his arm until he drops both hands from her shoulders.

"Look, I don't want this to be-"

"I said it's fine, Booth," she sighs, feeling a little too drained to get upset over this. She caves a little as his apologetic face slowly turns to a smile. "Really."

His grin widens and he leans in. "I think Gordon Gordon would agree with me when I say we make a great surrogate family for Sweets."

"Sweets enjoys our bickering, so yes, probably."

"This from the woman who says we don't bicker."

"In psychology, I suppose small disagreements might come to be termed as bickering." Her arms cross and she lets her face crack into a little bit of a smile as she stares up at him. "I appreciate what you did in Sweets' office.

He moves to stand beside her, leaning against his door. "But I did none of that for his benefit, you know."

She blinks. "For whom then?"

He shrugs, voice a little bit teasing as he begins to speak. "Well, gee I don't know, Bones…"

"I don't understand why you would do that for _my_ benefit, if that's what you're implying."

"You know, you're my partner so…" She's sure he's about to say _it's a partner thing_, although she's never really understood what that means. But he doesn't, letting his sentence trail off instead.

"So?"

"Here's the thing, Bones…" he says, smiling up at her as his back slides down against the smooth plank of wood behind him. "You're the type of person it's hard to say no to."

He's sitting on the floor and he looks absolutely exhausted, but attractive.

She laughs a little, knocking her leg to his knee. It's so late, and her cheeks feel slightly stiff where the tears dried a little while ago. Really she should leave. "What type of person is that?" she asks, sliding down to sit beside him.

"You, it's just you. You're the only person I'm talking about."

Maybe she knew this already, but wanted the compliment that comes with knowing it's her and only her. She nods, arm pushing against his as she contemplates. "So you're saying you would do anything I asked of you?"

His eyes narrow a bit after she states her conclusion, but he remains quiet. Brennan knows exactly what she wants to ask of him.

She leans into his face. "I want you to tell me how you know that one day I'll believe in love the way you do. You have no proof whatsoever that this will happen."

Silence.

Which means she's right; of course, she always is. She likes being right. He has no way of knowing, she knows this. He has no proof, so he was wrong. Now, she should go.

She starts to move when his hand covers hers in the dark over the carpet—metacarpals, phalanges, phalanx—all of it.

"You will, I just know. Everything I told you about there being one person for everyone, it's true. One day you'll realize this. You know how I know?"

She shakes her head no and he grips a little more tightly to her hand, pulling her up with him as he stands. He looks very…determined, and she wants to touch that little crease of concentration in his forehead. It's distracting, just like the way he is staring at her. Still, she stares right back at him.

"I know because you _want_ to know what it's like to love someone unconditionally, and you want to know what it's like to have someone love you like that in return. You deserve that, so it's going to happen, Bones. You trust me?"

There's no evidence, just supposition and his unsupportable belief that there is an overarching fairness in the world. But still..

"I believe you, if that's what you're asking me. I want to believe you."

He shakes his head no. "I'm asking you to trust me."

"I do trust you. You don't lie, not to me. At least, I feel sure that you-"

"I don't, Bones." He smiles, and she squeezes at his hand before letting go.

She turns toward the door, then back again.

"If I deserve that, to experience love in that way, then surely you do too, Booth."

"Well, here's hoping, right?"

No. She isn't sure who she'd spend her time with if that were ever to happen. She likes nights like these, likes the mental stimulation…she needs more than bones, and books, and the lab. She needs _this_.

"Yes," she says quietly, twisting at the doorknob.

Far too often she leaves his apartment more confused than when she came. Maybe she stays longer hoping for explanations, but she always comes away from the night having more to consider and reconsider than ever before. There are too many thoughts and possibilities to pin down, and fissures where she needs to do the pinning.

Metacarpals, the crease in his forehead,warm breath, trust, lines, bickering, silence, laughter, dark foyers, open books, promises, eventualies, partners, not just partners.

She thinks she knows what all of this might collectively come to mean; she feels that she's close to understanding. He's standing so damn close.

People in general may be unpredictable, but really, Booth is not.

He's always here, she'll always want him to be here.

She wants him, sometimes in ways she understands perfectly well.

But when it comes to matters of the heart, and Booth, and wanting, she's far too apt in general too err on the side of confusion.

And it's all the same. Always the same.

She wants to not be in the dark.

Her feet carry her down the stairs before she can hear his door slam shut.

* * *

**Brennan: Booth is in love with you. And you pretty much are in love with him too, just not cognizant of it. **

_Sometimes I get so frustrated with the way I write her, but that's half the fun, I'm sure. *rolls eyes at self* _


	7. Keep Me On My Toes

A/N: You guys, I am never awake this early, but someone thought it would be a good idea to call me at 8:30 am and wake me from my sleep, so here I am posting this fic. :) It's a tag for _Beaver in the Otter_. I hope you like it!

* * *

Brennan stumbles as she passes through Booth's doorway, her arms outstretched and pressing to his back as he flicks on the light. Warm, giddy, she feels that tonight she could really do something bad. Again.

"Geez, Bones."

"Well, you should move Parker's toys if you expect me to move around without tripping."

She sighs and rights herself, throwing her coat haphazardly onto his couch. It hits the well-worn fabric of the armrest, joining the cluttered accumulation of stuff that is his apartment.

The sight brings a slow smile to her face, if only because she feels there's something to be said for her coat, for _her_, being so consistent in sharing this space with him. Fridays, whenever they finish a case, whenever she feels like it. She feels like it a lot.

A whisper of _my place?_ and she's here, letting him pry her hands from her eyes as she pretends to object to watching television. With a breathy laugh, she'll observe his smile from the slats between her fingers.

He smiles now as she turns to face him. "I'm not sure they'll ever let us back into the Founding Fathers. If we hadn't dined and dashed we'd still be able to eat there, get drinks there all the time."

"We still can."

"Not after what we just did."

Booth shrugs, leaning toward her on a low whisper. His body clouds her periphery and she takes an unconscious step back. "You know, I have my connections, Bones. We're covered."

"Because you're FBI?" she asks, raising a brow.

"Yeah. And I'll tell you when you've been really bad."

His hands fold into his pockets at this and he goes a little red upon hearing his handcuffs jangle and clink together. Brennan sees his fingers clench around them through the fabric of his pants, and she imagines his knuckles turning white from the tension. For just a moment she lets herself feel the danger of the situation, lets herself toy with the idea of how closely he could crowd her against a wall. Not flustered or blushing, but with a murmur of _we're gonna do something bad_—a smirk fixing itself to his face like before.

With an inhale, she pushes down the thought, feeling her cheeks burn a little hotter as he watches her. She shouldn't feel embarrassed; thoughts are harmless, she knows. And if he's this uncomfortable, his own thoughts can't be that far off.

"Booth, I felt this rush of adrenaline, excitement, when we did that today. And, I've never—you know I've never intentionally induced that feeling, but…" She takes a step toward him, maintaining a reasonable, rational distance away. Letting her fingers trail to the hem of her dress, she stifles an odd impulse to reach for him. His eyes follow the path of her hand before his face breaks into a grin. "Thank you," she finishes, meeting his gaze.

"For getting you to do something bad?"

"Yes, I suppose."

He leans in conspiratorially. She matches his movement. "If you could've seen yourself. That big ol' smile on your face. _Oh my god, Booth. Oh, my god!_" he says with an affected impersonation of her. She doesn't sound like that, she's sure. Her lips purse in disbelief. "From where I was standing, I could hear your heart pounding a thousand times a minute."

"That's not possible," she says, collapsing onto the edge of his couch. The cushion sinks when he joins her, and she'd knock her knee to his if their limbs weren't so close as to already be touching. The warmth against her arm and leg coaxes an almost nervous laugh from her mouth as she looks over at him. "Tonight—running away from the bar—I imagine that might have been how my parents felt when they robbed banks. There must be some implicit mutuality in trusting someone enough to do something wrong with them."

"You're right. I think you're completely right, Bones." She always is and he chuckles at the pleased look on her face; it's familiar, she's sure. He knows her too well. "Except generally, you know, we're the good guys."

She shakes her head. "Not tonight."

"I guess that makes us partners-in-crime."

Brennan laughs, and their shoulders rub as he angles closer to her. He does this now, more than ever before. On purpose. She's almost certain.

She stands, walking toward his kitchen. "That was very corny. But…yes." Her body turns half-way, and she points out her intended destination with a slight tilt of her head. Booth follows.

Brennan knows she can stay here for hours. She has stayed here for hours before, drinking and talking until Booth is just comfortable enough to slide a palm over her thigh; until the warmth and feel of the room, of his hand, is just heady enough to make her think it would be best to leave. Only she doesn't. In retrospect, she's had her fair share of feeling bad and knowing it feels good. With him, it's inexplicably very good.

_Tell me if this gets to be too much_ he says slowly, almost nervously in her ear, and the rest is always unspoken. He'll brush the hair off of her face, letting his fingers linger, gentle and mostly just wanting her to stay. Or she'll knead her knuckles along his shoulders, easing away the tension there, and feeling it, thick, around her. Always, on nights like this, it comes to that point and stops there.

She appreciates the broad definition given to the term partnership, and she almost never wants more. They are good like this.

She's not sure Booth would agree. The way he looks at her sometimes…

The way he's looking at her now.

"I'm going to do something bad. And you can't tell anyone, Booth. You have to swear not to mention this ever again," she says, grabbing bread from his pantry and a knife from the drawer of utensils. It swings precariously in Booth's face as she punctuates _ever again._

"It's gonna be kind of hard to mention anything if you cut up my face," he laughs, catching the knife between his forefinger and thumb.

She reaches into his fridge and plops a vaccum sealed package of turkey onto his counter.

"I am making a turkey sandwich."

Silence.

Then he laughs and she feels her lips twist into an odd sort of shape—almost, but not quite a smile—before she abandons any pretense of this being a serious matter.

"If I had the opportunity to savor one final taste of meat, I believe I'd be more content with never again using my canines for their intended purpose."

He's still laughing, shaking his head at the pale stack of processed meat. Her mouth is watering for a taste. "I get it. But a turkey sandwich, Bones? Why not a steak?"

"Do you have a steak?"

"Good point." He grabs a plate and she grabs for two slices of bread, the act of making a sandwich becoming an exemplar of two people working in sync. It's a glimpse at some domestic existence they might in fact already share, and the happiness with which he watches her move about his kitchen doesn't escape her notice. "I'm all for you eating meat again. Makes my life a _whole_ lot easier," he says.

"How so?"

"You saw my vegetable drawer thingy before you came along."

"I told you, it's called a crisper."

Ingredients all lined up, she turns to find him flipping through his collection of albums. She hardly needs a soundtrack for making a sandwich, but it's a habit of his. There's something about silence that he finds almost oppressive. She's noticed, and remembers how he lay awake beside her in the quiet of that trailer three months ago. Tossing, turning, then talking to her in the dark. Of all things he missed noise. Traffic he told her, it's _real_, something tangible like her voice, and he sleeps with his window open.

In Oklahoma they were out of their element. And maybe this, right here, is their element.

"Tomorrow, Bones. Tomorrow, I am taking you out for steak," he says, shaking a dented record case for emphasis.

"The entire point of this is that it's supposed to be a secret."

"Then I'll buy and cook you a secret steak. We'll get you some real turkey too, if you want."

"No." She frowns, squeezing hard at a nearly empty container of mustard.

"Here," he whispers, quickly choosing some music and reaching across her body for the mustard. She almost lets him take it too, but on second thought brings it close to her chest. Because Temperance Brennan is capable of making a sandwich by herself.

She doesn't need Booth.

He rolls his eyes and she looks away.

"No steak, Booth. At midnight, when it is Saturday and no longer Friday, I'm going back to being vegetarian again. And just your partner, not your partner-in-crime."

"What and your car's gonna turn into a pumpkin?"

"I don't see how that's possible," she says, words clipped as she cuts her sandwich in half. The turkey is not so much a loss of self-control, she reasons, as much as her being bad on a trial basis. She needs protein for her body to produce adenosine triphosphate; so really it's a more a matter of this being a biological imperative.

Booth restarts the song they had been listening to and begins singing—if it can be called that—as she contemplates which side of the bread from which she should take her first bite. "She's a good girl, loves her momma…" she hears, low in her ear, and she nearly flinches.

"Stop it, Booth." His head bobs in her face and he moves closer, blatantly ignoring her and pretending to play a guitar in midair. "You are a terrible singer."

He taps a slow rhythm on the counter beside her and with a smirk pulls the sandwich away.

"Stop." Her hand slides over his, halting the movement and making the plate tip precariously. "Booth, stop…"

_I'm not in the mood_ almost passes from her lips. And what does that mean, really, when she's _this_ close to laughing and the door is right there if she actually were bothered enough to leave? Clearly she's not annoyed, so she's not sure what she's doing when she pretends that she is, crossing her arms and leaning in toward his face with a reprimand, her eyes on his.

"Bones, _you_ are about to eat meat," he says solemnly, grabbing for a sandwich half and moving it up toward her mouth.

"Just because I let you feed me a bite of a banana split doesn't mean…" she trails off, all the while leaning forward, parting her lips. And it's his smile she thinks, letting her gaze flicker to his mouth. He becomes quite persuasive, somehow magnetic, when wearing it.

The situation she's faced with is Booth and a turkey sandwich, and suddenly she feels quite bad. In the frontal lobe expanding, dine and dash, good sort of way. It's rather exhilarating.

Brennan takes a bite and chews slowly, savoring this. It's the best damn bite of sandwich she's had in her life.

"Delicious," she says, on a happy exhalation, snatching the sandwich from Booth's hand.

"Yeah?"

She nods, staring down at the half-moon cutout her mouth left in the bread, curved like a smile.

She's grinning at a sandwich, she knows.

Booth leans against the counter, watching her. Another delicious bite and his foot is skimming the tile around her own; she kicks at it, and he continues anyway—waiting, watching, until she decides to offer him a bite and he declines.

"I'm glad you decided not to go," she tells him. Whether he didn't go with his brother is because he too was not yet ready to lead a purposeless life, she doesn't really know. Or care. He's here.

"To India?"

"Yes, I feel it was a prudent decision, considering the fact that you wanted your brother to experience things for himself."

He shifts and rubs a hand across his jaw. Angela once whispered that she finds Booth most 'ravishable' when he's pensive like this. Objectively, there are moments Brennan finds him to be moreso than now.

"Jared, you know, he does what he wants. Does what he wants, whenever he likes," he says.

"I know."

And she does know. She can still recall the distinct pressure of Jared's lips on her own, the lack of inhibition between the both of them.

Like many men she's kissed without inhibition, he proved to be an utter jerk.

"I mean, is that a good quality? The fact that he toes the line? He's done plenty of pretty bad things already, I'm sure. And it got him pretty far until he did something for me, Bones. He's my brother, you know? He used to tell me everything. I hadn't even heard from him since all of that Gravedigger crap. Did he have a job? I had no clue until he showed up the other day."

Did Jared possess good qualities?

She tries to imagine Booth doing bad things, toeing the line on a regular basis: drinking, wrecking cars, being social for the sake of ascending in the bureaucratic hierarchy, kissing her. Somehow she can't picture this at all.

"My brother knows very little about my personal life," she admits, moving nearer to him. "But if I had a brother like you, I think that I'd confide in him much more. I tell you a lot, Booth."

He shakes his head and when he looks up, frowning at her, she wonders what misstep she's just made. Swiftly, he grabs hold of her forearm before she can turn toward the other half of her sandwich.

"Just…I'm your partner, not your brother or anything close, okay?" he says, a stern crease in his brow, the _okay?_ less a question than a formality. He doesn't talk to her like this and she narrows her eyes at him.

"I meant it in a-"

"Okay, Bones?" He grips a little tighter, moves a little closer. She swallows, feeling his breath, hot in her face, as she fumbles with piecing this all together.

Clearly one of them misconstrued…something.

"Okay," she murmurs. She shrugs, and lets his hand drop from her body as he moves past her toward his fridge. "I'm your partner," she says matter-of-factly, not quite able to grasp why hearing herself say this makes it sound like a revelation of sorts. Maybe it is.

He hands her a beer, fingers cold like the bottle. Their eyes meet for a moment and they smile warmly—comfortable, because they're partners.

"You know, I once pushed your brother off of a barstool," Brennan says, smile melting into a full-on grin.

Booth laughs. "I'm sure he deserved it."

"He did, he really did."

"Did Jared try to make a move on you?" he asks, nonchalant, as he motions toward her with his beer. "I wouldn't put it past him."

"What? No, well yes, he kissed me, but I pushed him off of the barstool because…" She pauses at the look on his face, his mouth pulled tightly in a grimace. But he says nothing and she continues. "Because, well…I'm sure you remember everything that happened around your birthday."

Maybe she should just shut up about this. Jared is obviously a sore spot. She betrayed Booth once, and she doesn't forget that.

"He kissed you," Booth says plainly, eyes sharp and focused on her own. He downs some of his beer, and she stares down into the mouth of her own. "He kissed you, Bones?"

He sounds angry, whether it's with her she can't be sure. She opens her mouth to object when he pries the beer from her hand, simultaneously crowding his body against hers, his hand sliding onto the cool countertop at her back.

Her even gaze meets his more heated one. "I had no knowledge of his many flaws at the time, and physically he is superior to-"

"To who?" He gives a long-suffering sigh, and for some reason it annoys the hell out of her. "Answer my question, Bones," he whispers.

"You are upset, though I don't understand why," she says, rational in her contention that a kiss is only a kiss. But perhaps not rational in thinking that being this bad, provoking him and feigning ignorance, could ever be good.

He leans in further, and Brennan's not sure why he never bothered to take off his jacket, but it flaps forward, brushing the fabric at her waist as his face comes dangerously close to her own. Her hand moves for something solid: the counter pressing to the small of her back. Instead she finds her fingers clutching at the soft leather of his coat, pulling it tighter against his forearm.

She watches his throat work as he swallows, his eyes on her hand. "He mentioned that kissing me was something you never would have done," she tells him and feels guilty instantly, upon seeing the look he gives her next. Like he can't believe what he's hearing.

"Booth, move," she whispers as his breath brushes the curve of her mouth.

"And you believed him?"

"I already apologized to you for all of this, Booth. And I can kiss whomever I want."

"Not my brother, Bones. Just…no." The words and his proximity incite something in her; anger, and a slow shiver she can't suppress. He sees it, she knows, and he says nothing, only slides his palm against her arm, as though to get the chill out. "Do you realize he only does things like that because anything good, I've always let him have it."

"And I'm the _it_ in the situation?"

He pulls away and pushes back the sides of his coat as he turns to look at her, hands on his hips.

"You know, Jared was wrong, I actually have…" he trails off, shaking his head as he snatches his beer up again and leans against the counter.

"Kissed me?" she finishes for him.

Her eyes light with mirth, and what is wrong with him? Now he can't even say the word kiss?

"Yeah."

"Oh yes, last Christmas." She looks up at him in question, screwing her face up in confusion. "Right?"

"_Right._" He rubs a palm across his face. And she thinks that Sweets has taught her, she thinks knowing Booth has taught her, that this expression he's wearing is _sadness, dismay, hurt_. "You know, if I remember that then so do you, Bones. You're a pretty terrible liar, so whatever it is you think that you're doing, I think you'd better stop."

She brings her beer to her lips and sucks at it slowly, feeling her face turn red under the dim lights of his kitchen. Her mouth pulls away from the bottle with a loud _pop_, and she feels thoroughly chastened.

She did absolutely nothing wrong. Everything she said was entirely true: factual and thus reliable. Remorse in this situation seems irrational. Yet, she feels…she does recall exactly how it feels to be kissed by him.

"I do remember, Booth," she says, slowly, quietly. "When I grabbed for your lapels, your heart was pounding under my knuckles."

He looks at her, but says nothing. Two tentative fingers reach for the plate holding the rest of her sandwich, and she pushes it toward him. Anthropologically speaking, a gesture like this would behoove some acknowledgment and reciprocity on his part.

"11:58, Bones," he says. "You have two more minutes of being bad."

"Yes, but it's not quite as fun when I'm doing it by myself."

And she's knows she is right. It isn't any fun. Two more minutes, and she decides to make proper use of it. No longer quite so sorry, she steps closer to Booth, as close as he was to her when he had her pushed against the tile of his countertop.

"You know, Jared…he wanted to kiss me. For some reason that felt important at the time. The fact that he didn't think kissing me was a ridiculous idea," she says lowly in Booth's face, breathing hard.

Or maybe it's him that's breathing hard. "Bones, how could you think…"

She bites her lip and he presses his mouth to hers on a short, chaste kiss. He slides his hand halfway in her hair, teeth gently pulling her lip from between her own teeth. His mouth is still wet from the beer, and that's the only note she manages to make, because a few seconds is as far as it gets.

The kiss is decidedly bad. And not in the way she would like it to be.

"I said he _wanted_ to kiss me," she repeats, this time with feeling and little more force, as he pulls away.

He can only stare at her for a moment and she blinks, daring him. He steps into her space, his chest nearly pressing to hers. His palms smooth across her cheeks, thumbs tracing the skin there as his fingers slip into her hair. "Bones," he whispers, eyes a deep-set brown as he turns her face to look at him.

It's too much…she wanted no pretense, only his lips on hers. That's all.

Brennan leans up on her toes and captures his lips in a kiss. She needs for this kiss to be good. She wants to know, again, what this can be like with Booth. Seeley Booth.

And maybe he catches her intention, because he wastes no time in fastening his mouth to hers. She grabs onto his coat, feeling the soft leather in tandem with the softness of his lips as she lets him maneuver her between his body and the counter once again. The slide of her lips against his escalates in no time at all and she forgets about thinking, considering angles and the best way to do this in two minutes time. Rather, she simply allows herself to feel this; the taste of the inside of his mouth and his tongue slipping against her own, him moaning against her lips when she pulls away for air, the tangle of his fingers in her hair as he gives her exactly what she wants—there's no one better at doing that than Booth.

She opens her eyes to see the time on the clock then pulls away on a short gasp. "It's midnight," she murmurs, flushed and wishing she hadn't wasted time on a sandwich.

"I figured that."

"That was what you would call toeing the line, correct?" she asks, smoothing out her hair as his hands move away from her face. "And I stopped. I understand the need, the relevance of a-"

"No line, Bones. No line."

"What significance am I supposed to extract from that, Booth? I never understood what it meant in the first place."

"It was stupid."

"I agree."

She sighs and grabs for the plate, dumping the uneaten half-sandwich in his garbage can. A twinge of self-pity hits her then and there, because how can she say she savored her last bite of turkey sandwich when she can't even remember it?

"You know, we're good together, whether there's a line there or not."

"We make good…partners." The last word comes almost as a question, and she lifts a brow upon seeing the look on his face. "If that was the incorrect thing to say, then you should just tell me, Booth. I don't know the requisite response to what you just told me."

"There is no requisite response," he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as they walk toward the living room. Before they sit on his couch he pulls her body a little closer to his. They are good people, and she thinks that maybe that is why they've so adeptly reverted back to little gestures and movements such as this.

"You know, I can't stand the old guy who lives below me," he says, turning to her with a glint in his eye.

"You're changing the subject."

"Do you want to talk about this more?"

She smiles, shakes her head _no_. "I can't stand the old guy who lives below you either. Mr. Jennings?"

"Yeah, that's him."

Booth turns, propping himself onto the cushion of his couch so that he's sitting on his knees. Brennan follows suit, staring out of his window as her arms flatten along the headrest.

"Why don't we like Mr. Jennings?" she asks, a huge grin forming on her face. Booth moves to open the window. He smiles over at Brennan when the wind hits their faces and tangles her hair again.

"Parker comes over and he complains," he whispers, his voice barely audible over the sound of a car alarm down the street.

"About the noise?"

"Yeah."

On a whim, which is something she rarely gets, she jumps up from his couch and goes to stand in the middle of his living room.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and her face lights as she brings a finger to her lips.

He narrows his eyes in question and in one sudden motion she jumps up then hears the heels of her boots hit the wood of his floor. Hard.

"Bones..."

She jumps, again. Higher this time and hitting the ground harder.

He starts laughing and they haven't even had much to drink, but she wants to not care that it's after midnight, wants not to care that it's no longer Friday, but now Saturday.

"Is this bad? Is this bad, Booth?"

She hears the sound of a window pane sliding up and the sound of some grumpy old man yelling below, and her hand flies to her mouth.

She feels excitement flood her body as Booth takes a tentative step toward her. His hand slides over her forehead and up into her hair. "I can feel your frontal lobe unshrivelling at this very moment," he whispers, ignoring the sounds of shouting and what sounds like the end of a broom hitting against his floor.

"When I get old, if I ever get like that. Take my gun and shoot me," Booth says with a laugh.

She wonders if she'll really know him for that long. She would like to.

"I am going to jump again," she nearly shouts, over the din of tires on asphalt, the broom against the floor at her feet, and someone's ornery grandfather making threats.

"It's after midnight."

"I really am going to jump. We can take Mr. Jennings if he decides to climb up the stairs."

"I can hear you little bastards!"

"Oh, god. Booth!"

"Hey! Give us a sec, Jennings!" Booth yells out the window.

"I am going to jump one more time to relieve a bit more of the tension in my brain related to impulse control. I think you should do it too." She pauses, considers, and then laughs. "I realize that that makes no sense whatsoever…"

"Let's do it."

"Jump?"

"Be more impulsive."

"Bad?"

"Yes, bad."

"But being bad is good."

"You and me, we good?"

"Yes. We're good. This is good," she says, matching his earnest nod with her own.

She feels good and bad and as though the two of them, together, are capable of getting away with a whole lot more than she could ever have fathomed.

His hand slips into hers, and she bites her lip then lets it go, not even attempting to suppress her smile. Booth talks of love and forever and knowing, and she gets by on nodding her head, agreeing to promises he's in no position to keep.

But she loves being here with him. That she knows.

"Tomorrow, can you still cook me a steak?" Brennan asks, her words carried out on the wind.

"Yeah," he says on a laugh. Booth springs up onto his toes, ready to jump. He looks down at the floor beneath them, then smiles back up at her. "You still wanna do this?"

The traffic outside is loud in her ears and she nods, rolling up onto the balls of her feet, squeezing tightly to his fingers.

He stands there; watching, waiting.

"Bones, just say when."


End file.
